Information Age of Enlightenment,

Or The Varieties of Mystical Experience

Rachel Capurso

May 9th, 2015

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Table of Contents

I. Introduction p. 3

II. The Cosmic Cosmology of William Blake p. 14

III. I’ve Got My Own System p. 19

IV. A Song For September p. 34

V. The Power of Primal Myth p. 41

VI. The Conversion of Richard Alpert p. 45

VII. Exit the Bardo, Enter the Void p. 51

VIII. Oracular Spectacular: Divination in Tibetan Buddhism p. 56

IX. Think For Yourself, Question Authority: The 8 Circuits of Consciousness p. 65

X. Uranus, Unbound: The Promethean Spirit of the Romantic Era p. 82

XI. Annotated Bibliography p. 104

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Information Age of Enlightenment,

Or The Varieties of Mystical Experience

In the Information Age, many ontological limitations of the past have dissolved, making

way for a grander vision of the expanding cosmos: vast stretches of stars, galaxies and

dimensions multiplied ad infinitum. As a cultural foundation for the exponential development of

collective consciousness, there is no religious myth or scientific model from the past immense

enough to encompass the shape­shifting spectre of human knowledge as it evolves in tandem

with its own discovery. The known universe appears now as an instant reflection of what we

might term, ecosophic awareness, creating a collective reality where consciousness seems almost

entirely externalized. This startling and humbling place in human history demands that the

mystical experience, (the trance state; the ecstatic state; the shamanic dream­world) be once

again appreciated as a source of cosmological rejuvenation. Mystical experience breaks through

to aspects of consciousness not ordinarily used to navigate the patterns of literary linguistics or

linear space/time. It has been my experience and therefore it is my belief, that profound mystical

experience acts as a catalyst to inspire great leaps of development, meaning that perception and

language become more sophisticated enabling new levels of intelligence and feeling to manifest.

This is how one remains on the cutting edge of evolution without becoming enslaved by

dogmatic materialism, rationalism, religious fervor, or any other paradigm which seeks to

prevent a seeker from finding what they need for expansion.

In my short essay, The Cosmic Cosmology of William Blake, I explore the visions and

wisdom of one of the most influential Romantic era artists. As a profound mystic of his time,

Blake’s passionate philosophy, which valued the primacy of poetic genius alongside his artwork,

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symbolically illustrates a unique esoteric communion with the power of primal myth. Blake’s

vision can now be compared with the concept of the “hologramatic universe”, where the whole

universe is contained within the smallest fragment and the smallest fragments are expressed

within the infinite. There are some uncanny synchronicities between Blake’s interpretation of the

Book of Genesis, and modern knowledge of cell division in molecular biology. In addition,

Blake has a stunning display of spiral imagery which bespeaks of an intuitive vision of the DNA

double helix. Blake is a perfect example of how mystical experience, through ecstatic states,

drugs, sex and art, can push human consciousness past its perceived limitations and into the

infinite.

Even in Blake’s time, there was much cultural programming and propaganda perpetrated

through media. As Blake once said, ‘‘I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s. I

will not reason and compare. My business is to create!” These words have acted as a north star

in my life as I traverse a landscape of mental traps, dividing dogmas, and histrionic histories. In

my biographical reflection, I’ve Got My Own System, I illustrate my reasons for my passionate

pursuit of mystical experiences, including meditation, entheogenic drugs, and yoga. I have come

to believe that in the world that is occupied by mass media, one must remain dynamic and

flexible through radical means of consciousness exploration.

Since the invention of the printing press, mass media has changed human consciousness

and in the Information Age this evolution continues at an exponential rate of acceleration. This

transformation is not invisible. Many people are so drowned in mass media that “addiction”

develops, complete with neuroses and withdrawal symptoms. How has human consciousness

changed as a result of mass media? Well, we know that television opens the subconscious mind

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like a dilated pupil, inducing a trance which dissolves the subjective experience of “I” and

replaces it with a blending of consciousness with all others who are “tuned” in. Likewise, the

internet takes this dissolution of subjectivity and creates an accessible notion of unity in which

all knowledge is simultaneously present.

The concept of the individual, developed during the Renaissance and so beloved by the

West, is fading away. The great media theorist, Marshall Mcluhan was best known for the

famous axiom, “The Medium is the Message” from his book, Understanding Media: The

Extensions of Man. In this book, Mcluhan looks at all media, from print to electric light to radio

and television, as mediums of communication which forever changed the way humans relate to

one another and their environment. In his Playboy interview from 1969, Mcluhan said, “ …all

media, from the phonetic alphabet to the computer, are extensions of man that cause deep and

lasting changes in him and transform his environment.” Mcluhan makes it clear that attempting

to judge the messages of mass media (television, internet) based upon literary categories of

narrative analysis “offers no dues to the magic of these media or to their subliminal charge.”

(p.27)

In short, Mcluhan understood that the narrative content of mass media matters very little.

Qualitative judgements based on morality and narrative content comes from the literary mindset

of individualism and nationalism born from the Gutenberg printing press in the 16th century. The

individual experience of reading a book to one’s self created a unique subjectivity which

television and the internet are eroding. The zeitgeist of mass communications is more akin to

archaic theories of panpsychism and universal mind. The impact of the medium is on our thought

processes and the way it changes our perceptions.

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Now here’s where we encounter the dark waters. Upon human consciousness, mass

media transposes virtual reality over sensual reality and it is easy to become lost in a bardo filled

with the apparitions of salesmen and the hungry ghosts who follow them. It plays out as the

grand tragedy of literary subjectivity searching for identity in a place where no individual mind

exists. Confusion is the leading side effect. Those who direct the programming of these mediums

of communication take advantage of the confusion and fill these subliminally charged

communions with embedded ideologies. (aka culture) It is not conspiracy theory to note that only

corporate interests are heavily represented and that those interests are malicious in that they seek

to divide people and inculcate them with fear. Advertising is always about selling desire and

self­doubt: that is all.

Though culture itself is a mass hallucination perpetrated through the language of the

establishment, that realization does not excuse one from partaking in evolving consciousness.

The reproductive power of the hallucination of Western culture is rooted in mass media, for it is

only through imposing mass control through homogenized ideology that millions of people can

be lost in the same fantasy. But all is not lost because the human spirit always lies in wait just

beneath any nefarious confinement, poised for escape into freedom, creativity, and love. If one

becomes lost in utter nihilism, then suddenly one is well suited to the role of the psychopomp

who guides people from the land of illusory cultural programming to the shore of

self­realization.

It has been my experience that meditation, art, energy healing, entheogenic substances

and/or devoted contemplation all have the power to allow one to shed their cultural branding but

retain collective consciousness. Deep exploration of inner space allows people to free themselves

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from the imprisonment of hierarchy, and feel their potential once again as they are reborn as a

sovereign being: pain is released, beauty is beheld, and art pours out.

The mystical experience is one that is by its nature, elusive and somewhat indefinable.

Yet, what is mystical still defines a category of human experience that is beyond religion and

often beyond language. However, be that as it may, I have included a personal story that I wrote

about a personal entheogenic excursion that illustrates how a fountain of feeling and profound

meaning can be extracted even from agitating surroundings. In A Song For September, I describe

an evening where I was as far removed from pristine meditative environs as possible. I encounter

Downtown Los Angeles in the apex of its archaic neo­shamanic revival: drums, drugs, and

trance, but this mixture of juxtaposing ideologies, economic classes and legalities make for an

irksome evening. The authoritarian architecture of Downtown Los Angeles, animated by my

readings of Mike Davis, make an interesting backdrop as I explore a decadent dance party in

front of City Hall.

Why did I engage in this irrational behavior? Mircea Eliade once wrote, “A purely

rational man is an abstraction; he is never found in real life. Every human being is made up at

once of his conscious activity and his irrational experiences. Now, the contents and structures of

the unconscious exhibit astonishing similarities to mythological images and figures.” (Sacred

and Profane, 1987, p. 209) His observations indicate that human beings are naturally drawn to

experience the irrational, which often inspires mysticism. This also means that the gleaming

rationality of modern science must be understood as an ideal, rather than a reality. Just as the

Christian religion espouses tales of the righteous man who is promised a paradise free from pain

and death, the ideology of science espouses tales of the rational man, who can investigate

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pathways to a utopian world of knowledge and enlightenment. Eliade is pointing out that almost

any human ideology will bear the same unconscious infrastructure as our archaic ancestry of

earth and sky cults, based on animism and mythology.

The Power of Primal Myth, is an essay in which I explore the syncretism between

Western technocratic mysticism and the Amazonian shamanic traditions that utilize the potent

entheogenic elixir, Ayahuasca. I describe some of the extraordinary sensations described as a

result of Ayahuasca consumption, including its relation to merging with the mythopoeic realm,

where time does not exist and the dream world of symbols, prophesy and transformation are

unveiled. Is important to note that the common Western conception of hallucinations, as an effect

of such drugs, is considered completely misdirected and misconceived by indigenous

practitioners. The Amazonian shaman’s view of the experiences produced from Ayahuasca,

whether they be visual or auditory, is that it they a form of information technology used to access

higher levels of human consciousness. Therefore, from a shaman’s point of view if one has

consumed Ayahuasca and a tree begins to speak, this is not a hallucination but is instead an

insight into the tree as it truly is. The indigenous people claim that this is how they communicate

with the plants and gain their vast knowledge of medicines, potions, and poisons. Entheogenic

mystical experience is a library of knowledge to them. It is important to note how many

Westerners are now flying to the Amazon to seek these experiences. Though that fact has its own

trappings of colonialism and appropriation attached to it, it nevertheless bespeaks of a great need

for Information Age people to find other means of coming to know themselves, heal themselves,

and experience reality through another lens. In The Birth of Tragedy, the great philosopher

Friedrich Nietzsche described the collective need for the experience of myth saying, “The

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tremendous historical need of our unsatisfied modern culture. . . the consuming desire for

knowledge­­what does all this point to, if not to the loss of myth, the loss of the mythical home,

the mythical maternal womb?” (p.32)

I have included another piece which details the journey of westerner seeking

enlightenment, who first found psychedelic drugs and later eastern mysticism. He is known

today as Ram Dass, but the title of my essay recalls his birth name in: The Conversion of Richard

Alpert. His story is inspiring because he was once an Ivy­League­educated man, who was hired

by Harvard’s Psychology Department in the late 1950’s just before the cultural revolution. He

evolves from a stiff psychologist (repressed homosexual, alcoholic, atheist) to a radical

participant in the legal research on LSD. His mentor was none other than Dr. Timothy Leary,

who at the time of the Harvard experiments, was also a highly respected and prominent figure in

academia. The mystical experiences that these men had in the midst of fulfilling their duties as

Harvard psychologists led them to become enemies of the state. Both men lost their jobs and

their reputations for demanding that the mystical experience, as administered through LSD

therapy, could change people’s lives for the better and help them to break out of the complexes

and cycles that psychology had been helpless against, including alcoholism. Richard Alpert

became Ram Dass when he encountered a guru in India who brought him more contentment and

wisdom than he had ever imagined possible, even with the profound LSD experiences he had

incurred. While Richard Alpert’s conversion experiences are not a blueprint for everyone’s life,

his story emphasizes the necessity of the mystical experience in one’s evolution towards freedom

from ideological imprisonment.

There is much wisdom to be found in one’s imprisonment too. Tibetan Buddhists believe

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that the suffering and the ecstasy of life teaches each person how to evolve into better lifetimes

until there is final liberation from the Karmic Wheel. Much of their spiritual practice is in

preparation to navigate the after­life, or the bardo, as they call it. Without knowledge of how to

traverse the bardo, many souls may become ensnared in a long cycle of unhappy lives. In the

bardo, one is faced with demons and illusions, all attempting to dissuade your soul from

reincarnating into a more evolved form. Therefore, the mystical experience is the most important

source of knowledge in their view, much more so than empirical reality. The practice of Tibetan

Buddhism is in large part, a study of the bardo through meditative experiences. The written

knowledge of the bardo comes to us in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which describes death and

rebirth in the continuum of consciousness. I have included my film review for, Enter the Void,

because it is a unique and experimental cinematic interpretation of death as described by the

Tibetan Book of the Dead. The titular void can be thought of as any emptiness that is sought for

want of wisdom. In Tibetan philosophy, any choice is noble in terms of the voyage to

enlightenment, but who would not want to steer their course for the better if given the chance?

In order to expand on the mysticism of Tibetan Buddhism further, I have included my

essay, Oracular Spectacular: The Art of Tibetan Divination. For those who can not live as

mystics and monks, Tibetan Buddhists have included in their midst, Bodhisattvas, monks whose

lives are dedicated to helping every sentient being achieve enlightenment. Embedded within the

philosophy of the Bodhisattvic tradition, lies the unique divinatory practices of Tibetan

Buddhism which are considered an essential means of helping others on their evolutionary path.

The divinatory system of Mo used in Tibetan Buddhism functions also as a metonymic tool for

understanding the Buddhist philosophy of causal interdependence and interrelation. The Sanskrit

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term, pratityasamutpada, is the complementary term to the concept of sunyata or emptiness; thus

in Buddhism dependence and emptiness are two sides of the same coin. A philosopher named

Nagarjuna, the founder of Mahayana Buddhism, devoted his writings and teachings to

demonstrate the nature of all phenomena as being empty, interconnected and dependent. He

arrived at these conclusions by relating his mystical visions in meditation to his followers. The

concept of emptiness was meant to allude to an intuitive way of knowing that all beings are

“empty” of distinct or singular existence. According to Nagarjuna’s perspective, the only

phenomena that could be observed was change and since all is mutually interrelated, nothing

existed inherently. Therefore, in the culture of Tibetan Buddhism, divination is seen as a

practical use of the knowledge of interdependence.

The term “culture” itself is an ecological term, which describes a biological process that

implies alchemical change. Human culture can therefore be conceived of as the process of

change in the ways in which human beings relate to one another and to their environment. This

coherence of social forms is of interest to semioticians, who see culture in terms of linguistic

patterns which create a jigsaw puzzle of unifying symbols. Personally, I conceive of culture as a

type of “computer programming”, which is the most relevant and dynamic metaphor that I have

found.

I get these ideas largely from the martyr of LSD himself, Dr. Timothy Leary, whose

name I avoided for so long due to the cultural programming I received as a child. When I was

growing up, I inadvertently soaked up a montage of imagery that evoked the Manson murders,

hysterical people jumping off of roofs, and hippies dying in bathtubs alongside the name, Dr.

Timothy Leary. Imagine my surprise to find that this former Harvard psychologist had a lot of

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fascinating theories and a lot of lucid and inspiring things to say. When I realized that his words

were nothing but wise, my life became a lot more enjoyable. Think for Yourself, Question

Authority, is the title of the final essay in my portfolio and it is drawn from one of Leary’s most

famous speeches.

Based on his studies into esoteric Tibetan Buddhist philosophy and the whole of Western

psychoanalysis, Dr. Leary developed a unique theory. He conceived of a therapeutic way to work

with your own evolution in a model he called, “The Eight Circuits of Consciousness”, which

maps the human nervous system (our computer processor of norms and knowledge) through

eight phases of evolution, from the most primal fight or flight response to the most esoteric states

of conscious experience. According to Leary, the eight circuits evolved across time along with

human civilization. As a human being develops across their lifespan, they evolve through the

first four circuits. These are quite familiar stages of human development, quite analogous to

Sigmund Freud’s oral, anal, phallic, latent and genital stages. According to Leary, the nervous

system is imprinted from infancy through adulthood by environmental, familial and social

factors. The norms and knowledge of a given tribe or society are imprinted upon the individual

through these developmental periods (or circuits). Knowing that culture is collective

programming which is used to create distinctions, hierarchies, and ideologies within human

beings, he wrote extensively about ways to “deprogram” yourself from toxic beliefs that oppress

the human spirit.

The final inclusion in this portfolio is my essay, Uranus Unbound! The Promethean

Spirit of the Romantic Era. This essay correlates the astrological interpretation of the discovery

of the planet Uranus with the spirit of the Romantic era. In astrology, the planets represent

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aspects of human consciousness which play out through complex dynamics. The planet Uranus,

having been discovered in this time, represents a moment when Western man discovered a new

depth of innovative and imaginative ability, one that demanded revolution and rebellion against

the tyrannical structures of religion, politics, and even science. I examine some revealing

expressions of this Uranian energy in some of the most notable writings of this time, including

the novel Frankenstein. My hope is that through the evocation of this spirit of imagination and

innovation in Romantic writings, I will continue to find the inspiration to overcome the tyranny

of my own time with a confident belief in the power of the human spirit to defy corruption and

ideological slavery.

Invariably, the only measurable way to deprogram yourself from any long standing

cultural paradigm is through the mystical experience, whether it be the shamanic healing, the

cataclysmic conversion or the riptide of ecstasy that washes you back up on the shore,

completely transformed. These experiences do not necessarily depend upon drugs, but there

should be no stigma against one pathway over another in terms of the evolution of

consciousness. This is why the use of entheogenic substances are dangerous to the state, because

they allow people to become familiar with their own autonomy and to change their beliefs,

transforming their ignorance into imagination. It is my wish to see the values of the Western

industrial world organically shifted by the yearning to embark upon deep explorations of inner

space and exuberant encounters with ecstasy. I am grateful for the wide range of subjects which I

have been able to research and write about with a single­mindedness towards this vision intact.

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The Cosmic Cosmology of William Blake

Abstract: William Blake was a poet and a prophet, who experienced life and expressed it through far more than the Aristotelian senses. He embodied a certain ferocity of spirit that never lost touch with the mythological realm that transcends linear time. If William Blake had been born in the Amazon, he would have no doubt been called by the gods to be a shaman. As it was, he was called by the spirits of his time and place to re­imagine the cosmology of the Christian world and the Empire of Great Britain as something spiritually biological and mystically sexual. His paintings can be examined today by a modern molecular biologist as containing knowledge of DNA. His poems can be read as a herald of a dawning age of new religion. William Blake still has much to teach us.

William Blake was one of the earliest and most influential writers and artists of the

Romantic era, though in his time he was relatively obscure outside of a circle of revolutionary

thinkers. William Blake successfully created an entirely original mythopoeic cosmology, which

was the inspiration for both his poetry and his visual artworks. He is best known for how he

blended the words of his poetry with sumptuous visuals including intricate watercolors and

engravings. His vision of the world was fiercely independent of any dogmatism from the rational

or spiritual conditions of his era and his astounding collection of illuminated poetry gives the

modern reader a visceral experience of the ‘‘Poetic Genius’’, which Blake believed was the

essence of creation itself. What makes William Blake such an important archetype for the

Romantic era itself was his zealous pursuit of freedom, his passion for revolution against tyranny

and how he prioritized creativity above all other pursuits in life. Regarding his motivation to live

as an embodiment of creative imagination Blake said, ‘‘I must create a system or be enslaved by

another man’s. I will not reason and compare. My business is to create!”

Unlike highborn gentleman artists of the late 18th century, William Blake was a

tradesman in his craft, who worked for a living as an engraver. He was commissioned to bring

many textbooks and classic works of literature to life with small, yet meticulous illustrations.

Therefore, Blake depicted as many familiar scenes and characters as he depicted radical new

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ones. Although all of Blake’s characters are beautiful and fascinating, it is through the study of

his versions of familiar characters that his true originality can be surmised. For example, Blake

was commissioned to illustrate John Milton’s, Paradise Lost, and so we can examine Blake’s

version of Adam, Eve, and Satan in the Garden of Eden, which is unlike any other depiction in

the whole of Christian art. In addition, he often painted scenes from Bible stories, such as the

Book of Job or the mystical dream of Jacob’s Ladder from the Book of Genesis. His visual art

contains many subtle esoteric symbols that allude to his mystical revelations, yet this imagery

does not distract from the more utilitarian essence of the storytelling. He was always so broad in

his visions that his art could contain all the symbolic language necessary to elucidate many

complex elements of spiritual experiences.

A prominent example is found in Blake’s use of spiral imagery, in both the Garden of

Eden scene and in the dream of Jacob’s ladder. In centuries of religious art before the 18th

century and in the centuries since, Blake’s depictions of these scenes remain unique. He paints

Adam and Eve under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, with Adam’s back turned as

Eve is enveloped in the serpent’s body, which spirals around her nudity and delicately feeds her

the forbidden fruit in an open mouth kiss of original sin. The effect is extremely sexual, yet Eve

is not the typical Western nude made object of desire. Rather, this image feels deeply biological.

Again we see a spiral used by Blake to depict the stairway to heaven, that Jacob dreams of in the

Book of Genesis. This image has been widely explored in Christian art as well, yet the staircase

has always been a straight ladder stretching up to heaven. Blake, in his striking originality, shows

us a spiral stair winding up to heaven in a diffusion of starlight and celestial splendor. Blake, as

the Poetic Genius was expressing more in his imagery than a simple retelling of Bible stories.

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Blake’s Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden tells a story far removed from the

traditional one. In Blake’s cosmology, God was an androgynous primeval entity named Albion,

which became sexual when it split into four disparate parts or “zoas”. These four zoas catalyzed

a life form between them, which was a man named Adam, who had a spectre or shadow named

Satan and was joined by an emanation of his consciousness named Eve. (William Blake and the

Myths of Britain, 1999) Life began with a holy trinity. So it is clear that the story of the Garden

of Eden takes on an entirely new meaning if Adam, Eve and Satan are thought of as one being,

expressed in three different modes. Adam emanates a female aspect, Eve, and sends his spectre

Satan to seduce her into a permanent division from Albion. This sounds like a poetic depiction of

cell division known to molecular biology. The story is about sex, but there is none of the

Christian shame in Blake’s version, for all are the progeny of Albion and Adam is both Satan and

Eve. Blake’s version can be read as a deeply shamanic vision that depicts the elegant process of

DNA twisting genes together through the union of chromosomes to create physical form imbued

with life force. In this cosmological view, all mankind is woven together with a unifying

consciousness that was purposely individuated from Albion in order to experience the subjective

Self. Original sin is absent from Blake’s view, for differentiation from the original essence

appears to be the cosmic order of things which is to be accepted and experienced, not resisted.

The story of Jacob’s Ladder must have also resonated deeply with a man like Blake, who

was known for seeing apparitions, angels, hearing heavenly music and feeling the presence of

spirits all around him. His visual depiction of the spiral stair ascending to heaven must have been

based on his own visionary experiences of transcendent truth, which binds imagination to

expression in the physical world. The spiral stair is the very core of our being, just as DNA is the

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language that we are translated to the physical world through. William Blake was a revolutionary

explorer of the inner space, which is still mysterious to most of Western society. Sacred

experience came naturally to him and his observations compelled him to share his wisdom within

beautiful poetry that embodied the profound insights he had into the cosmos. “To see a World in a

Grain of Sand/ And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,/ Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand / And Eternity in an

hour.”

The spiral is a common symbol found in art from the majority of cultures and it is the

primary shape found in environmental structures of the universe. However, this was not as

empirically obvious in Blake’s time as it is now. He intuited that the spiral was an essential

aspect of consciousness and physical form. By the 20th century, science found through its

instruments of study that both galaxies and DNA are expressed in a spiral formation, and

particles follow fractal waves of motion rather than straight lines. The spiral rules the micro and

macrocosmic, the internal and the external worlds. The 20th century anthropologist, Jeremy

Narby studied the phenomena of the spiral in Western and indigenous consciousness claiming,

“Both shamans and molecular biologists agree that there is a hidden unity under the surface of

life's diversity; both associate this unity with the double helix shape (or two entwined serpents, a

twisted ladder, a spiral staircase, two vines wrapped around each other); both consider that one

must deal with this level of reality in order to heal.” (The Cosmic Serpent, 1998)

In addition, the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung said that spirals represent “cosmic force”

and that the upward spiraling of Kundalini serpent imagery symbolized “the urge of realization

(which) naturally pushes man on to be himself”. (The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga, 1932)

Jungian analysis would interpret the intuition of Blake as a communion with the collective

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unconscious. Interestingly enough, William Blake’s concept of the Poetic Genius is not too

dissimilar from Jung’s collective unconscious and so it is fitting that Blake was so in tune with

deep cosmic imagery and that he infused the Bible with this consciousness. One of Blake’s most

famous revelations about the cosmos is summarized in this quote from the Marriage of Heaven

and Hell, “...If the Doors of Perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is,

infinite.”

I’ve Got My Own System Abstract:The title of this essay refers to William Blake’s line,“I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.” In this autobiographical piece, I outline my personal reasons for researching the mystical experience. I detail my own evolution through suburban hell where I become addicted to mass media and prescription drugs, thereby completely losing touch with my body, my mind and my desire to live. Impoverished and institutionalized, I had very little hope of feeling any joy for life. It was not until I became a psychonaut (sailor of the mind) that I rediscovered my spirit. Slowly, but surely, I have recovered from drug addiction and mental illness without the assistance of medical professionals because I miraculously found a way to follow my instincts and keep far away from the representatives of decaying ideologies, such as psychiatry. I have learned to use my intuition and my creativity to form my beliefs. This has been the liberating power of the mystical experience in my life.

Almost everyone in America is on drugs. This stringently hierarchical and repressive society

has waged a “War on Drugs” in order to make an arbitrary category of illegal drugs a scapegoat

for our problems. Meanwhile, alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine are available on every corner

promoting tension, territoriality and unconscious behavior. Prescription drugs, which are often

analogues of “illegal” drugs such as adderall (cocaine) or oxycontin (heroin), are also pervasive.

There are also drugs which are not categorized as drugs, such as television, video games, and

online shopping. In many ways, my life as an American can be described as a long history of

drug use.

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I was born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles. My very early childhood had been a

balmy California dream. As an only child, I played happily by myself under a row of orange and

lemon trees, which emitted the most soothing perfume; a miasma of harmonious fragrance for

memories to live in forever. In the eastern corner, there was an apricot tree that bloomed like a

wedding gown of pink lace. When the sun was warm enough, the yucca would spread like a

stretching hand upon the ground and produce one towering white plume of floral bells which

shivered softly in the breeze. With all this beauty around me, my imagination really thrived.

One of my greatest gifts in this life is a vivid memory of early childhood. I am one of

those strange people who can recall lying in my crib and being bathed in the kitchen sink.. I can

recall tumbling new words around in my mouth as I learned to speak. I can recall thumbing

through books before I knew how to read, longing to dive into their meaning. I can recall playing

with ladybugs, talking to fairies, and seeing angels dance in the mists of sprinkler water.

However, I can not recall when I first became entangled in television, for its influence crept in

slowly and subliminally. That large wooden box in the corner emitted a cold light which

eventually enveloped me. I would completely leave my body as I sat in its glow, racked with

visions. My perception of the world around me was slowly diluted by images, millions of images

which usurped my consciousness. Home was where that electric glow was. I was a drug addict

from this moment on.

As I grew, like all children, I was sent to school and I was very excited at first. However,

by the second hour of my first day of kindergarten I was vomiting and had to be sent home. I felt

suffocated by school days, which never seemed to end. At night, immovable mountains of fear

loomed over my bed. As I closed my eyes, hideous faces shape­shifted into an array of grimaces

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full of predatory cruelty. I learned quickly that my job was to please my teachers. Thereafter, I

focused my fear of failure into a laser beam of learning acuity. In other words, I began to

perform to stave off shame. I became obsessed with making my teachers like me.

My house was an environment of explosive fights and emotional turbulence. I grew to

understand that my parents were not mentally stable and I retreated more and more into the

escapes provided by books and of course, television which acted just like a narcotic drug. In a

way, I imitated my parents by becoming dependent on something for comfort. My body was

distant from my mind and feelings. I was soothed through food and television, but I started dying

slowly. I kept perfect grades and maintained cooperative behavior in school, but I began to play

in my beautiful backyard less and watch television more. In a book entitled, The Plug­in Drug,

author Marie Winn provides anecdotal evidence which illustrates that the effect of television can

easily be likened to a drug, with children being helpless against its power. She asserts that

television is addictive and that its effects begin to be noticed in decreased playfulness, creativity,

and clear thinking. (p. 36­57)

The type of television shows that I was allowed to watch were somewhat monitored when

I was a child. However, I have come to realize later in life that this made no difference at all,

since I was still exposed to an endless barrage of commercials. Also, the content of a television

show, whether it depicts violent sex orgies or children playing with puppies, does not change the

physiological hypnotic effects of the “drug”. Through induced trance, TV opens the

subconscious mind to receive messages. The great media theorist, Marshall Mcluhan, made a

case for this in his most famous axiom, “The Medium is the Message” which is from his book,

Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. In this book, Mcluhan looks at all media, from

20

print to electric light to radio and television, as mediums of communication which forever

changed the way humans relate to one another and their environment. In his Playboy interview

from 1969, Mcluhan said, “ ...all media, from the phonetic alphabet to the computer, are

extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment.”

Mcluhan often notes that the problem with studies done on television arise from the fact that they

come from a “literary” mindset, which is unconsciously acted out by most. He reminds us that,

“Print created individualism and nationalism in the sixteenth century.” (p.27) He makes it clear

that attempting to judge the message of the medium of television based upon literary categories

of program and content analysis “offers no dues to the magic of these media or to their

subliminal charge.” (p.27)

Therefore, the content of television always leaves a subliminal imprint, whether one is

watching a shopping network or a violent news story. The content of the mediums of mass media

are incidental, and the evolutionary process is triggered not by content but by the impact of the

medium on our thought processes and the way it changes our perceptions. One of the strange

ways in which television transformed my environment as a child was through a show called

Little House on the Prairie. Coincidentally, the show had been filmed at a place called Big Sky

Ranch, less than a mile from my home. When I went to visit as a small child, I felt disconnected

from it as though I was viewing the site through the television screen rather than seeing it for the

wild open space that it was. Virtual reality had transposed itself over sensual reality. I could not

experience nature as it was for I was lost in the bardo called, TV land.

Television is the only drug which is also a billboard, meaning that those who direct

programming are responsible for the products and ideologies that are embedded within the

21

“subliminal charge”. It is not conspiracy theory to note that only corporate interests are

represented by the content of television and that those interests are largely malicious in that they

offer ideologies which seek to divide people and inculcate them with fear. Though I was an avid

reader as a child, my private individual experience with literature was constantly overshadowed

by even the most dull­witted and crass commercials. I can still hear with clarity the echoes of

annoying commercial jingles for chewing gum and breakfast cereal, whereas I can no longer

recite the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. The intrinsic nature of television shaped my life

in subliminal and subconscious ways, which I can only now begin to conceive of. The subliminal

messages spread through the medium of television promote consumerism, and therefore the

underlying purpose is to instill self­doubt, fear, and unfulfilled desire in people.

In the late 1970’s, a former advertising executive named Jerry Mander wrote a

provocative essay entitled, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, which argues first

and foremost that the effect of the medium of television is one that conditions humans to accept

someone else’s authority. This parallels Mcluhan’s observations that where print media

inculcated intellectual individualism, television created an extremely passive communal space.

Mander goes on to say that, “Artificial environments deprive us of a direct knowledge of nature.

Our knowledge is limited to the created environment , and so we know only what we are told by

“the creator” of that environment. Whoever controls the creative process, defines reality for

everyone else.” (p. 2) Through studying media, the cliche, “seeing is believing” has been

revealed to be so true.

By the time I was nine years old, I was secretly addicted to MTV. I would sneak to watch

it anytime I got the chance, often late at night when my parents were passed out. MTV was a

22

constant barrage of four minute music videos which incorporated a unique blend of visual styles

that recalled European Art films and surrealism. These short film collages created alluring

dreamscapes in which I would practically drown myself in. Even when the TV was off, my

imagination had become plastered with advertisements and images constructed by mass media.

My inner world was full of millions of images, burned into my retina and spewing from my

subconscious mind in furious chaos: a collage of sex, suicide and Doublemint Gum. This illusion

of culture splattered across my senses like black paint. The two most blatant signs of how

overwhelmed I was included my terrible insomnia and burgeoning obesity.

In an article entitled, Visual Voodoo: The Biological Impact of Watching TV, biologist

Aric Sigman notes that, “New research has found a significant relationship between exposure to

television and sleeping difficulties in different age ranges from infant to adult.” (p. 15) He goes

on to declare that the seriousness of disrupted sleep is notable in that it can prevent proper levels

of the hormone melatonin from forming. Melatonin is vital because it acts as a powerful

antioxidant for the brain as well functioning as part of the rhythm of the sleep cycle. Sigman also

mentions that in many different studies from all over the world, television has become an

independent factor in determining the cause of obesity. He says, “Beyond displacing physical

activity, a new study has found a significant dose­response relationship in which resting

metabolic rate decreased as average weekly hours of TV viewing increased.” (p.16) Therefore, it

is not surprising that I began to suffer from insomnia and obesity as a child. I was merely

displaying the symptoms of drug abuse which are largely ignored in our culture, because most of

the population is currently hooked on the drug as well.

23

Anyone familiar with the sufferings of Western industrial white girls, knows very well

how to predict what happened to me before and during adolescence. Beginning at age nine, I

began to loathe myself, hate my body, and I became terrified of the prospect of puberty. I

developed acute mental problems which were defined as anxiety, depression and obsessive

compulsive disorders. I began to starve myself, exercise fiendishly, and would then collapse back

into food binges. In the sixth grade I stole my Mom’s diet supplements, which were herbal

concoctions of stimulants. I also deeply inhaled her asthma medication to increase my heart rate

as I ran around in circles, dizzying myself into a faint. I even tried to smoke my Dad’s cigarettes

because I had heard that smoking helped you lose weight. Finally, when all this failed, I began to

dress all in black because I had heard on TV that “black was slimming”. It also suited my ever

darkening mood and complemented my late nights of insomnia.

By the time I began high school, my parents were divorced and I had been diagnosed as a

major depressive, for which I was prescribed a cocktail of prescription drugs. As I acted out my

depression, I was sent to a mental institution, spending weeks locked up in fluorescent hell. In

the hospital, I developed an addiction to tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Obviously, none of my

destructive behaviors were healed in such an environment, but I did learn to hide and repress a

little better. I dropped out of high school in 11th grade. All I wanted to do was paint, write

poetry, and drink alcohol. My parents never tried to intervene so long as I promised to go to

college one day. At seventeen, I fell deeply in love with a boy and when he committed suicide, I

felt like I died too. For a long time, my dreams were always about this boy who would appear to

me in environments of ocean and mist. Lots of crying, pills and two more visits to the mental

hospital followed.

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I feel like I sort of woke up at the age of 19, addicted to alcohol, tranquilizers and

cigarettes with a torturous amount of grief. The shock and the grief catapulted me into a depth of

feeling which paradoxically allowed me to begin to appreciate life once again. The sensation of

waking up in any condition was exhilarating. The only identity I had which I could rely on was

that of “artist” and so I began my journey as such. I hated therapy, I hated school, but I attended

both and continued to write poems. I now had the motivation and the endurance to begin to

explore my own inner space.

When I turned 21, I descended from middle class to impoverished in less than six

months. My mother lost our home and squandered the remainder of our savings. She moved in

with her sister. On a steady dose of Xanax, I began renting a room in a depressing neighborhood,

which I paid for with disability money I received from the state to compensate my mix of mental

illness and newfound poverty. It was in this dejected condition that I came across my first dose

of psychedelic mushrooms. I had always avoided psychedelics before because I was “scared” of

my own mind. However, this was just the kind of experience I needed to recover my spirit. I

knew that people should be outdoors on mushrooms and that was all I knew. To properly imbibe

them, I went to the beach one night with my boyfriend and some other people. The

expansiveness of the psychic realm which opened that night was beyond anything I could have

ever anticipated.

I heard the stars singing, as a choir of angels, while streamers of vaporous light rained

down from their great height. I watched my footprints in the sand illuminate in swirling colors

emanating phosphorescent glimmers. The rhythm of the ocean tide breathed in and out like a

sweetly sleeping child. As I shut my eyes, my body buzzed with electric fear as I beheld a

25

gruesome melange of images. With careful intake of breath, these haunting sights were slowly

obliterated by a cleansing light, enveloping me in warmth. Then with eyes wide open, I saw

illuminated mists in the air, bearing shimmering projections of geometric art that rivaled all that I

had ever seen depicted from the great religious art of this world. I had found the temples of my

own consciousness. I felt for the first time since early childhood that there was no authority that I

was beholden to in order to contextualize this experience. I was compelled to simply remain

present and receptive. This was my first foray into psychedelia and beyond being a beautiful

night, the experience revealed to me that there was indeed a way to dissolve the conditioning

which had long caused me so much suffering. I had found the well of compassion and creativity

within. I had found the forgotten magic which lay silent in my bones. ~*~ ~*

All the negative rumors I had heard about psychedelic experiences were all laid to rest as

I began to devote many balmy afternoons and moonlit nights to consciousness exploration. Many

of my friends, who had been able to relate to me as a hospitalized depressive, could not bear to

be around someone who would enjoy traversing unknown psychic realms. The main problem

was that psychedelics were often mixed up in other drug scenes, which were filled with addiction

and despair. I had many unusual encounters with “trashcan junkies” and “meth heads” in order to

locate the substances that I sought, which included: psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and MDMA.

Though there is no potential for addiction with psychedelics, the urge to willfully change the

channel on your consciousness can be powerful enough to make a person consort with elements

of danger that would otherwise seem imprudent. A sort of hunting instinct kicked in. I found

myself immersed in the strange underworld of other unwanted and abused young people. Along

the way, I witnessed some miracles as well, such as a heroin addict deciding to leave hard drugs

26

forever after just one meaningful LSD trip. The LSD had allowed her to find the root of her

addiction, address it, and willingly move on. To this day she is a happy and healthy person.

Inner space is at first terrifying to a person who has been lost in trance and self­loathing

their whole lives. There was a time when I could not even close my eyes in the dark without

being enveloped by terror, hence the need for tranquilizing medications. Considering all the

problems I had, I do not mean to imply that this process of exploring my own psyche was strictly

an upward trajectory from the moment of its beginning. There is nothing linear about the

navigation of the subconscious realms, nor is there anything like hierarchical progression in the

wisdom that comes from exploring one’s own consciousness. Instead, suffice it to say that I am

grateful that I instinctually began to look inward with such intensity. I found the glow of life

within myself again.

I use the word instinctually because the beliefs I had formed from exposure to mass

media, mental health care, and my family had pushed me to the brink of death. A wild thrashing

instinct responded from a deep place within me where television, medications, and other cultural

conditioning had never reached. This was my re­acquaintance with my own spirit, which seemed

untamed and savage, yet full of goodness. Through the use of these sacramental substances I

experienced inspiring visions, profound feelings of joy, and partook in deep levels of

communion with other people where peace, love, unity and respect were the main topics of

conversation. Both my boyfriend and I developed into much better people and our love became

truly profound, generous and loyal: qualities rather new to us since we were both from abusive

homes.

27

Until recently, I had long identified with the term, “psychonaut” which means “a sailor of

the mind”. However, the Danish historian of hermeticism, Dr. Wouter Hanegraaff, has recently

coined the term “Entheogenic Esotericism” to describe the current of religious rituals which

include psychoactive substances. He writes, “the term entheogen was coined in 1979 by a group

of ethnobotanists and scholars of mythology… concerned with finding a terminology that would

acknowledge the ritual use of psychoactive plants” (p. 392) Esoterism refers loosely to studies

which search for hidden meaning, occult symbolism, and psychic phenomenal experience.

Therefore, according to this definition, I can now identify as a devoutly religious person of the

21st century globalized post­post­modern multi­cultural world. My esoteric interests have all

been aided by my experimentation with the exploration and healing of my own consciousness

through psychedelic substances, as well as meditation, yoga, hypnosis, and other magical

techniques derived from all over the world. I have thoroughly enjoyed my work.

Feeling as good about my experiences with psychedelics as I do, it is easy to forget how

much my interests frighten and offend other people and I always have to vigilantly keep this

aspect of myself very private. In his essay, “Entheogenic Esotericism”, Dr. Wouter Hanegraaff

has analyzed the three main ideological oppositions that users of entheogens often encounter

which I deem to be quite insightful. One argument is derived from Protestant assumptions that

such experiences are not truly religious because they are associated with indigenous magic.

Having earned my bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology, I recognize this view as a classic

hegemonic imperialist position on magic, which implies that Western religious traditions are

more legitimate paths to finding “God” or the “Truth”. A second argument often encountered is

derived from the ideology of the materialist idealists, who see psychoactive substances as merely

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a way to change one’s brain chemistry, which nullifies the perception that a religious experience

can be had through these mere chemical changes. I am frustrated by this because as a collective

philosophical consciousness, we need to move past the Cartesian concept of dual separation

between mind and body. What is happening to your brain chemistry is a synecdochical

representation of a holistic experience, which includes your body and whatever it is you deem

spirit to be. Finally, there is the resistance from the War on Drugs mentality, which is a

combination of the first two ideologies with militaristic aggression added for good measure. This

one is my favorite, for it harkens back to the grand lesson I have learned about mass media and

its ability to create nearly impenetrable ideologies in the mass culture. Despite the lack of

scientific evidence to support the fury with which psychedelics are banned, the mainstream

culture still espouses a narrative which frames them as dangerous and therefore psychedelic

drugs remain illegal, scheduled right alongside heroin and methamphetamine. (Hanegraaff p.

394­95)

To borrow a phrase from the late great ethnobotanist philosopher Terence Mckenna, the

fearful culture in which I live has made me feel as though much of my identity exists in a state of

“enlightened alienation”. However, this fact is something I can live with because the relief from

the burning torment of status quo corporate culture is worth almost any compromise. I no longer

accept its authority, which thrives only on hatred and the exploitation of people. I choose not to

expire under the weight of mass media. I choose not to let culturally created beliefs calcify my

perspective and torment me into submission. Rather, I seek to maintain a dynamic and receptive

vision which will continue to celebrate diversity, compassion, and true individualism. I have

taken back ownership of my own good sense, my own intuition and my own feelings. I have

29

taken it upon myself to create my own culture, to find kindred spirits, and to live in joy. What I

do believe whole­heartedly is that everyone is an artist with the power to create within. Language

itself is transformed and created through the medium of the imagination and with the cultivation

of imagination as a personal and cultural priority the world can only continue to improve. Social

structures and ideologies of hatred and fear are always defiant against new language which

renders them insignificant. The systems currently in place will always attempt to disempower

human beings through mechanisms of control because that is their nature and their livelihood. To

this I can only respond, “Fuck the system! I’ve got my own system.”

It has become clear to me that culture itself is a mass hallucination which is perpetrated

through the language of the establishment. Culture exists mainly to apply limitation to our

thoughts and identities. Currently, the reproductive power of the hallucination of Western culture

is rooted in mass media, for it is only through imposing mass control through homogenized

ideology that millions of people can be subjugated. However, all is not lost because the human

spirit always lies in wait just beneath any nefarious confinement, poised for escape into freedom,

creativity, and love. Having once been lost in utter nihilism, I can now serve as an inspiration for

others: a psychopomp to guide people from the land of illusory cultural programming to the

shore of self­realization. It has been my experience that the use of entheogenic substances has the

power to allow the user to shed the branding of their cultural labels, free themselves if only for a

moment from the imprisonment of hierarchy, and feel their potential once again as they are

reborn as a sovereign being: pain is released, beauty is beheld, and art pours out.

Psychedelic drugs are not the only way to connect with inner truth and since they are

illegal, it is certainly not a ubiquitous option right now. Everyone must experiment and find out

30

what is right for themselves and in so doing, their lives can become both a science and a spiritual

practice. However in order to be able to decondition oneself from mass media and cultural

ideology, there should be no moral agenda which prevents any person from exploring their own

consciousness. Science and spirit require freedom of movement and to honor our own

sovereignty inherently respects to the sovereignty of others. On this point, I love what the great

writer and poet Maya Angelou said before she died on May 28th, 2014. She posted a final

statement on Twitter in her usual poignant manner, saying “Listen to yourself and in that

quietude you might hear the voice of God.” With such wisdom shared by all and the power of

our own individual imaginations, we can start living instead of dying. Now let’s create a

beautiful world!

31

Works Cited

Angelou, Maya.(DrMayaAngelou) “Listen to yourself and in that quietude you might hear the

voice of God.” Twitter.com 23 May 2014, 11:43 a.m.

Hanegraaff, Wouter. "Entheogenic Esotericism." Contemporary esotericism. Sheffield: Equinox

Pub., 2013. 392­409. Print.

Mander, Jerry. Four arguments for the elimination of television. New York: Morrow, 1978.

Print.

Mckenna, Terence . "Appreciating the Imagination." Esalen Institute , Big Sur. 12 July 1994.

Lecture.

McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding media: the extensions of man. 1st ed. Cambridge: The MIT

Press, 1994. Print.

Sigman, Aric. "Visual voodoo: the biological impact of watching TV."Biologist 54.1 (2007):

12­17. Print.

Winn, Marie. The plug­in drug. New York: Viking Press, 1977. Print.

32

A Song For September

Abstract: This is a short story about a day when I went to a party in Downtown Los Angeles. Through a light­hearted narrative, I examine the cultural geography of the city, observing a legal state sanctioned drug party in Grand Park. Many deep and profound feelings, inspired by Mike Davis’ City of Quartz, emerged as I found out just how much this ‘public’ space did not allow any freedom of thought or movement. As an observant person, I attempted to understand why there might be summertime drug parties in a public place surrounded by government buildings, policemen and corporate sponsors. Los Angeles continues to be a paradox and a mystery.

"Sorrow and scarlet leaf,

Sad thoughts and sunny weather.

Ah me, this glory and this grief

Agree not well together!"

- Thomas Parsons, 1880, A Song For September

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon in September, still summertime, although not the white

hot summer that burns away apathy and indolence. This afternoon, the heat had gravity and it

weighed upon me through an amber haze that colored everything ominous. To anyone in Los

Angeles, this light signifies the season of wildfires and the thrashing winds that drive them. The

air is charged with prickling static as the season of harvest, death and destruction descends.

To “beat the heat” on this particular day, I was sipping on iced tea at a coffee shop in

Glendale, trying to cool my head and quench my insatiable thirst. The heat penetrated my bones,

rising up from the concrete sidewalk and breathing down through the crackling breezes that

fluttered over my face. I stared into the horizon of the San Gabriel Mountains, all barren and

charred, the living testament of the current drought. As I closed my eyes, I recalled the news I

had read about the severity of the water shortage. I felt the pangs of guilt for my indulgently long

showers which I followed with pious resolutions to never wash my car and to shower every other

33

day. I sighed, and looking back up into the hills I silently pleaded with them to not erupt into

flames this year. Just then, I got a text from my friend Lucy that read, “Free party tonight in

Grand Park! Wanna go?”

The spell of listless monotony broke instantly. I had never been to Grand Park before, but

I quickly learned that it had been home to many free dance music parties during the last two

summers. I had not been to any kind of electronic dance music show outside of a club venue

since 2010. That was the year of the last Electric Daisy Carnival, which caused the Los Angeles

Memorial Coliseum Commission to ban raves due to the alleged death of a teenager. Grand Park

was apparently attempting to lift the dark cloud that had hung over the dance music scene by

offering a free venue for electronic music fans to enjoy. I was skeptical because the truth about

the electronic music scene is that it involves psychedelic drug use and I was confused about why

this illicit behavior would be welcomed in a public park.

Suspending our disbelief, Lucy, my boyfriend Andrei, and I drove to downtown Los

Angeles and found parking easily. We entered Grand Park in the midst of the heat and light of a

stifling metropolitan evening, sucking in as much exhaust as oxygen with some intakes of breath.

We had decided to complement this scene with a small dose of psilocybin mushrooms, “just to

kick it up a notch”, as Lucy had said. I chewed on the papery stems, feeling the dryness in them,

in my mouth and in the sweltering air.

Grand Park was new to all three of us, as it had only opened two years ago. The sensation

it gave was one of entering onto the set of an epic motion picture from the golden era of

Hollywood. Its design perfectly captured the awe and wonder of the palatial art deco architecture

34

evoked by old Los Angeles. The layout of the park did indeed offer a cinematic vision of the

city, stretching 12 acres from Grand Avenue out towards the towering monument that is City

Hall. I felt the clenching governmental authority pour from each its glinting black windows.

Though hauntingly beautiful,, the entheogens I had consumed could only interpret City Hall as a

menacing obelisk of severity and obstruction. Wandering through the park, one could not escape

its austere gaze and thus, Grand Park began to take on the feeling of City Hall’s dedicated

temple.

I hovered near the fountain plaza, which was three enormous tiers of gushing water. The

top sprayed a geiser into the air with an effervescent spirit of abundance that confused my

drought­conscious ego. The water conservation warnings I had read all over downtown

billboards seemed like a distant fiction, for here there was enough water for everyone to wade in.

This was a scene full of laughing children and sun soaked parents, all drunk on the joy of

reveling in the everflowing water. I loved being there, letting the mist caress my cheeks, but as I

heard the dance music calling from the center of the park, I finally pulled myself away.

The mushrooms had been steadily rearranging my perceptions into a melange of meridian

grid lines and mythopoeic overlays. In order to maintain my composure, I had to ignore the

emerging vision of Isis in the face of a woman who passed me on the left and I had to dissolve

the realization of Osiris in the face of the security guard on my right. I steadily followed the

drumbeat to the center of the park, closer to City Hall and nearer to a throng of revelers. All at

once I realized, that everyone crowded around the dance floor was seriously inebriated. Though I

had also ingested a small dose of psychedelics, these people were moving like aliens, with joints

35

in unusual places, gazing off into the void with each eye pointed in a different direction. The

rhythm of the music was danceable, but not seductive. I did not commit to standing anywhere,

but kept moving; my friends close at hand.

On my right was a large group of people all standing behind a rope, contained in a section

of the park that allowed cocktails to be served. In other words, the drunk people were segregated

by liability laws, whereas those who had consumed all manner of unique illegal chemicals were

roaming around everywhere else, falling all over themselves with a confetti of sunglasses,

lighters and joint wrappers flying onto the dance floor. I cringed as I remembered all the children

who were playing up by the fountain, deciding to allow dissonance to become my state of being.

This was decidedly weird, and it was not just the mushrooms that made it so.

As I hung back and stared into the crowd, I saw the Romantic dreams of the 1990’s rave

culture masticated by the granite teeth of the government buildings, swallowed by the police

state and then vomited back up all over park. This did not feel like a rave, but more like a

sociological experiment perpetrated by the CIA. Here was an opportunity for consciousness

expansion, ecstasy and communion and it had been dry­cleaned by the government and handed

out like popcorn. On either side of the park were other menacing government buildings, whose

polished granite walls were baked as hot as desert sand. I gazed up at the Hall of Records

building, now dancing with projections of colored lights, twirling and swirling to the music.

“Bread and Circuses,” I murmured.

Near the bathrooms, I encountered the grim visage of the Starbucks mermaid. Her Mona

Lisa smugness clenched in my throat. I closed my eyes against the ensuing vision of miserable

36

coffee plantations, hearing the siren singing “coffee is made from the blood of slaves.” I

wondered if I had taken too many mushrooms.

I shook it off and wandered into a courtyard where I found what appeared to be a bright

orange food truck. As I approached its windows, it revealed itself instead to be an exclusive

vendor of Amazon Kindles, gleaming with fetishism and greed. The heat and the strangeness

reached a breaking point, so I went to find a cigarette; always soothing in socially awkward

moments. Having successfully bummed one from an androgyne carrying a parasol and a glittery

lunchbox, I relished the first slow inhale of the blue smoke, noting that it had the same hue as the

approaching twilight.

I let the dryness consume my throat, a small sacrifice for the sweet relief brought to my

nerves. I was feeling tranquil now, sitting on the edge of the park, away from the party looking

on from a distance, “like a good 19th century anthropologist,” I thought. I observed a golden

statue of Moses, glowering over the ten commandments from his pedestal. I knew what Moses

would do when he found this party, so I ignored him and continued enjoying my cigarette. A

moment later, a police officer approached me with a strong tone of voice and stomp in his boots.

“I’m sorry, but you may NOT smoke here.” he said. I was puzzled since I was not only outside,

but also far away from any other living soul. Yet, he insisted and with the authority of a baton, a

gun, and the commandments of the city, I was shuffled out of the park and onto the sidewalk

right outside of City Hall.

On the sidewalk designated for pariahs and smokers, I meditated on the absurdity of this

setting. In Los Angeles, one can be invited to Grand Park with the implicit purpose of taking

37

drugs; one is also explicitly welcome to get drunk behind a velvet rope; but nobody is allowed to

have a cigarette on the sidelines without an armed policeman intervening. I felt the dimensions of

the invisible cage I was in, for though I was outside, I was still in a government building that had

been expertly compartmentalized, stratified, and sectioned off according to arbitrary policies and

rules. The City of Los Angeles has built a decadent temple unto itself, which encourages its

citizens to use drugs and make merry, but only in predetermined and predesignated ways. The

park had turned into a fishbowl, and we the party people were its fragile sea monkeys.

As I continued to enjoy my cigarette, I wondered what all the government officials were

up to in City Hall. What were they hoping to distract Angelenos from? Why were the people

being given such decadent “bread and circuses?” A small amount of research reveals that the Los

Angeles 2020 Commission has recently published its first report which states that, “Los Angeles

had 1 million more residents in 2010 than in 1980, but 165,000 fewer jobs. Its poverty rate was

the highest of any big city in the country.” (Buntin, 2014) In addition, the report goes on to

describe Los Angeles as having a division between rich and poor that is more reminiscent of

developing cities in the third world, rather than a typical American urban area. 1

Behind closed eyes, I could feel the glowering tower above me and sense its

machinations. City Hall is invested in ensuring that Los Angeles continues to have a glossy

veneer of frivolity and freedom as it continues to engulf millions of people in an economic and

spiritual fire trap. “This is still movieland.” I mused. “I guess we might as well enjoy the show.”

I stamped my cigarette, carefully observing the sparks die out before moving on.

1 http://www.governing.com/topics/mgmt/gov­eric­garcetti­los­angeles­mayor.html

38

Wandering back to the fountain, I gazed into the window of sky above the park. It had

deepened into indigo dusk, which had set the fountain aglow with its nighttime show of colored

lights. I walked hand in hand with Andrei, into the wading pool, letting the water wash away the

tension and the paranoia, allowing the spitting streams to cleanse the ethics that regretted each

drop of wasted water. I soaked myself in the spray, christening the moment as perfect, despite

the day’s aggravations. As I fell deeply into this worship of water, the most resplendent sound of

music began to drift upon the air. The drumbeats had paused to allow a live violinist to play a

solo. With tears in my eyes, I breathed in the majesty of the sound, silken violin strings merging

with the twinkling cityscape. The flashing lights of cars and the rushing sound of the freeway I

felt spaciousness return as all the feelings of confinement vanished. My heart lifted into the stars

I could not see and in veils of symmetry I swirled into the galaxies. All that was and was not me,

turned to Andrei and said, “Now this, has been enlightening.”

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The Power of Primal Myth

Abstract: The archaic revival is a term which refers to the revival of shamanic practices in the West, which not only includes interest in dreams, the unconscious mind, symbols, and mythology, but also includes the practice of psychedelic or entheogenic rituals. Ayahuasca is one of the most prominent shamanic plant medicines that is currently being studied and imbibed by Westerners. It is a potent hallucinogenic experience, in the minds of Westerners, and is a technology which enables indigenous Amazonian people to enter into the realm of dreams and myth for the purpose of healing and consciousness expansion. This brief essay explores the experience of Ayahuasca as a powerful doorway into the realm of myth, a place outside of profane time.

“The realm of myth, from which, according to primitive belief, the whole spectacle of the world proceeds, and the

realm of shamanistic trance are one and the same.” – Joseph Campbell from the Masks of God

For some time now, it has become common place for Westerners to journey to the

Amazon to partake in the sacred plant elixir known as, ayahuasca. These experiences have

generated thousands of mystified anecdotes which proclaim the ayahuasca phenomenon to be

cleansing, awakening and reifying. The fact that Westerners are now crawling all over the plant

ceremonies of the Amazon appears to be an enactment of the fetishization of “primitivism” and

the commodification of spirituality. However, though these aspects of exploitation are no doubt

present, most devotees of this experience believe that ayahuasca is an immensely powerful

teacher that ushers in a spiritual transcendence which defies mundane politics. In other words,

Ayahuasca consumption is considered to be a form of communion with the primal mythopoeic

realm.

There is not just one Amazonian tribe which uses ayahuasca, (aka yage) but the Desana

branch of the Tukano Indians in eastern Colombia will be the focal point of this research. The

Desana have a creation myth which suggests that humankind was born of the cosmos and that the

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cosmos can be directly communed with through ingestion of sacred plants, including, caapi

which is the vine used to make Ayahuasca.

The Tukano Creation Myth is told as follows: “The first people came from the sky in a

serpent canoe, and Father Sun had promised them a magical drink that would connect them with

the radiant powers of the heavens. While the men were in the “House of the Waters,” attempting

to make this drink, the first woman went into the forest to give birth. She came back with a boy

radiating golden light, whose body she rubbed with leaves. This luminous boy­child was the

vine, and each of the men cut off a piece of this living being that became his piece of the vine

lineage.” (Metzner 11)

The sacred vine in the Tukano myths could be compared to the Western notion of the

Christ child, born into the world a savior and consequently dismembered and eaten. (the

sacrament) Tukano religious practices center on the interpretation of dream­like and/or telepathic

visions, produced by consumption of ayahuasca: the crushed and boiled “vines of the dead”

(Metzner 14) In these altered states, the Desana commune with the spirits of plants and animals.

This ritual is primarily used for healing and requires a shaman, called an ayahuasquero. During

the ritual, these guides administer the drink and then chant and sing to shape the experience,

move it along, and summon catharsis. The participants usually experience a violent physical

purging and then an utter dissolution of their former consciousness.

Like in dreams, there are infinite possibilities in terms of experience on ayahuasca.

However, there are many commonalities which give the impression that ayahuasca

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consciousness is a realm unto itself with its own symbolic language. As the participants behold

the swirling chaos of inner space, the ayahuascero acts as a guide who gracefully traverses these

inner realms in order to facilitate healing. Many people experience a return to the “Cosmic

Uterus”, making the Tukano creation myth come alive: visceral and prismatic. Many also

experience multiple realms of consciousness simultaneously, creating a feeling of omnipresence

so unlike mundane subjectivity. Many people talk to and shape­shift into the forms of powerful

animal spirits, including the jaguar and the serpent. It is also expected that one will commune

with plant consciousness and with one’s ancestors.

The term, “hallucinogen” is actually derisive towards the ayahuasca experience because

the religious beliefs of the ayahuasca cultures do not consider the accompanying visions and

sounds to be hallucinations. Rather, they are conceived of as an expansion of natural human

abilities. The consumption of ayahuasca is considered to be a technology, which allows open

communication with the realms of plants, animals, ancestors, and the cosmos. Therefore, the

term entheogen should be used, which is a term that describes a substance intended to produce an

ecstatic and inspired state. The purpose of the ayahuasca trance is to re­enter the realm of the

primal myth. In myth, creation rolls life up from the deep, the stars are born, the oceans swell,

and the plants and animals flourish in harmony. The mythopoeic realm is like the womb, a place

for life’s regeneration. On the quest to know one’s true self, it may be that the ayahuasca

experience is incomparable.

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Works Cited

Campbell, J. (1991). The masks of God: Primitive mythology. New York: Arkana.

Furst, Peter T. 1972. Flesh of the Gods: The Ritual Use of Hallucinogens, P. T. Furst ed. New

York: Praeger Publishers.

Metzner, R. (2006). Sacred vine of spirits: ayahuasca. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press.

Reichel­Dolmatoff, Gerardo. The Cultural Context of an Aboriginal Hallucinogen

Williams, J. E. (2005). The Andean codex: Adventures and initiations among the Peruvian

shamans. Charlottesville, VA: Hampton Roads Pub. Co.

43

The Conversion of Richard Alpert

Abstract: This essay describes a powerful conversion experience, as would have been appreciated by William James in ‘The Varieties of Religious Experience’, through the fascinating life story of Richard Alpert a.k.a. Ram Dass. His story offers more evidence of the power that the mystical experience can have in dissolving ideologies and liberating the mind. Richard Alpert is significant because he was at the epicenter of Dr. Timothy Leary’s original LSD research, and therefore this particular story describes some of the influences of the mystical experience brought on by entheogenic substances. In Richard Alpert’s life, drug induced mysticism is later contrasted by the pursuit of meditative spiritual devotion following a Hindu guru, implying that there are many paths to the same profound realizations. This fact should elucidate the point that there should never be value judgment put upon the choices that humans make to foster their own creative development, including the choice to use drugs. The spiritual emergence of Ram Dass from Richard Alpert is a story that teaches us much about politics, history, and psychic development in the light of human consciousness.

In the ninth lecture from The Varieties of Religious Experience, author William James

attempts to elucidate the experience of religious conversion through the best figurative and

psychological language of his time. The mysterious transformation of physical or spiritual

substances is a predominant theme in most religions and alchemical pursuits. Religious

conversion is the transmutation of an individual’s consciousness, where the sinner becomes a

saint just as lead becomes gold. Though language often fails to truly describe or qualify such

intangible spiritual experiences, James was determined to observe and record the workings of the

“subconscious” mind to the best of his ability. As an early psychologist, no doubt William James

felt a certain connection to religion in that his studies were full of mystery and inexplicable

human behavior. Therefore, his attempts to find more acute psychological understanding within

the paradigms of religious conversion seem sensible. He noted that both psychology and religion,

“admit that there are forces seemingly outside of the conscious individual that bring redemption

to life.” (James, 1902, lec. 9) This redemption represents the acknowledgement of the insoluble

phenomenon of conversion.

Considering William James’ dedication to studying religious conversion and mystical

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consciousness, the story of the 20th century spiritual teacher, Ram Dass, is particularly relevant.

Ram Dass was born, Richard Alpert, in April 1936. He came from a wealthy Jewish family near

Boston, where he was raised in the faith of Judaism. Alpert was also given a very fine education,

which he used to parlay his academic talents into a stellar college career. He settled on the field

of psychology, which had advanced fifty years since William James’ time. After he earned a Phd

from Stanford University, he was given an illustrious professorship at Harvard University. Up

until this point in his life, he had been a brilliant, yet straight­laced scholar. As fate would have it

however, Dr. Alpert found his corner office to be right next to another prominent doctor of

psychology named, Timothy Leary.

One might suppose that two doctors of psychology working at Harvard might be familiar

with William James’ voracious fascination with altered states of consciousness and might indeed

follow in James’ footsteps in terms of studying and recording any and all observations of their

own. Dr. Leary in fact, revolutionized psychology and American culture with his psychedelic

drug studies and he insisted that his findings proved their potential for healing and positive

consciousness change. Dr. Alpert was as much of a proponent of psychedelic exploration and

study as Dr. Leary was. In the early 1960’s, both men were fired from Harvard University for

dabbling in studies that might tarnish the reputation of the department. Less than five years later,

all psychedelic research was made illegal.

Although this must have seemed like a tragic blow at the time, if this downturn of events

had not occurred, then Richard Alpert’s conversion would have never taken place. After being

fired from Harvard, Alpert continued to use psychedelics heavily. In the documentary about his

life, Fierce Grace, he claims that during this time he was using LSD every day for weeks at a

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time. He says, “finally getting high, getting high, getting high wasn’t satisfying.” (Ram Dass,

2001, Fierce Grace) After his mother died, like many young people of that generation he decided

to go to India to seek a deeper understanding of himself. “In going to India, I was looking for

someone who could read maps of my consciousness.” (Ram Dass, 2001, Fierce Grace) With a

giant supply of LSD and an American guide, Alpert spent months traveling around the country

talking to people about levels of consciousness that he had previously presumed to be accessible

only through taking “acid”. Still, he remained a cynical American with a chip on his shoulder.

He had no interest in visiting the guru called Maharaji. However, his traveling companion

insisted and they drove a few hundred miles to a temple in the mountains.

The conversion of Richard Alpert into Ram Dass occurred only a few moments after he

met Maharaji. According to Ram Dass himself, everyone bowed low to the ground in front of

Maharaji except himself. Without any agitation, the guru told Alpert that he could see that he had

been mourning his mother beneath the stars the night before. Of the instantaneous conversion

that followed, he said, “That was the breakthrough! After that, when Maharaji was near me I

was bathed in love and because he knew everything about me, that was like I was forgiven.”

(Ram Dass, 2001, Fierce Grace) Alpert lived with Maharaji for many months, learning

everything that he could from his teachings of love and compassion. The guru gave him the

name, Ram Dass, which means servant of God. Thereafter, the former Harvard professor, Dr.

Richard Alpert, became wholly identified as Ram Dass.

The experience of conversion that Richard Alpert had can be better understood using

William James’ idea about “habitual centers of energy”, which change to mark a conversion.

The habitual centers of energy in Richard Alpert’s life revolved around intellectualism, social

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status, drug experimentation and grief. Suddenly, something inside him broke through like a dam

giving way to a strong current and sensations “previously peripheral in his consciousness”

became central. (James, 1902, lect. 9) The conversion of Ram Dass is somewhat reminiscent of

the case study of Stephen H. Bradley from The Varieties of Religious Experience. James

recorded Bradley’s experience with the Holy Spirit as he recounted,“My heart seemed as if it

would burst, but it did not stop until I felt as if I was unutterably full of the love and grace of

God.”(James, 1902, lect. 9) Both Ram Dass and Bradley describe an overwhelming sense of

love and wonder as a hallmark of their encounter with the divine. Their habitual energy

converted from worry and doubt into complete peace and compassion.

Of the development of his spiritual nature, Ram Dass said, “When I went to India, my

method was psychedelics. When I came back from India it was inside me.”(2001, Fierce Grace)

What he meant by “it” is open to interpretation, but it is likely that he meant the “stream of

consciousness” which James intuitively wrote of in his essay, Does Consciousness Exist? (1904)

Stephen Bradley would have termed ‘it” as the Holy Spirit, which is often described as being

inside a converted individual’s heart. When Ram Dass returned home, he wrote a book about

these experiences called, Be Here Now, which is considered a classic of the counterculture

spirituality genre. He has continued to write spiritual books, teach, and counsel people since his

conversion in the late 1960’s. His friendship with Dr. Leary did not diminish, but Ram Dass

claims that he never had any interest in psychedelics again. For Ram Dass, enlightenment

became a subtle internal experience whereas Timothy Leary sought for a more visceral sensorial

experience.

The most fascinating aspect of Ram Dass’ story and of all conversion stories, is the

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suddenness and the totality with which the experience affects the life of the subject. The moral of

each of these stories is that conversion can happen to anyone for any number of reasons. One

should never become too attached to an identity since it may slide off unexpectedly one day. The

only conclusion that can be made is that the response to life that identity presupposes is as

mutable and capricious as life itself. There is poetic alchemy in every experience, which can turn

any pain into exaltation and any mundanity into magic, and agony into ecstasy.

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Works Cited

Lemle, M. (Director). (2001). Fierce Grace [Motion picture]. United States: Zeitgeist Films. Does Consciousness Exist? (1904). (n.d.). Does Consciousness Exist? (1904). By William James

in ESSAYS IN RADICAL EMPIRICISM (1904) // Fair Use Repository. Retrieved December 3, 2013, from http://fair­use.org/william­james/essays­in­radical­empiricism/does­consciousness­exist

William James's The Varieties of Religious Experience Chapter 9. (n.d.). William James's The

Varieties of Religious Experience Chapter 9. Retrieved December 3, 2013, from http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wjames/ch09.html

49

Exit the Bardo, Enter the Void

Abstract: There is nothing more mystical than death. This essay is a film review which describes a cinematic meditation upon the subject of death, and the life after, through the philosophical perspective detailed in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The film, Enter the Void is a dramatic depiction of the bardo, or the realm that is in between life and rebirth in the Tibetan tradition. Enter the Void is a film, which is so beautifully composed that it seductively beckons one to

journey deep into inner space. The prospect seems tantalizing at first, as sensations of awe and

wonder skim across the visual plane through its glowing images of neon nightlife. But by the time

receptive exploration has begun, the intensity of the experience becomes magnified to an almost

unbearable degree leaving the viewer feeling helpless against the sheer force of the mental agony it

confronts. This film is not just an existential meditation on life. This is a film about life, death, and

suffering in the continuum of consciousness as described in part by the sacred text, The Tibetan

Book of the Dead.

Though most of the film takes place outside of linear time, the film begins with a traditional plot.

A young American named Oscar is living in Tokyo. The audience sees everything through his eyes,

even the shutter snaps of darkness every time he blinks. This effect makes the viewer’s relationship

with Oscar immediately intimate. He is a blank screen for our own egoic projections. So, through his

eyes we explore his dim apartment, the beautiful figure of his sister as she leaves for work, and

above all the kaleidoscope of Tokyo city lights shining from over the balcony. Oscar has been

reading The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which he reviews as being, “pretty cool”. Once he is alone, a

few white granules of dimethyltryptamine or DMT are sprinkled into a pipe. We see the lighter go

up to our face, we see the eyelids blink more slowly, and then everything dissolves into a mingling

of twisting fractals, fading in and out of different color schemes. These intertwining geometric

visions lead the audience into sedate astral contemplation, mostly concerning the nature of of the

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titular void. Suddenly, Oscar is interrupted by a cell phone call. We learn from his end of the

conversation that he is a drug dealer and the cosmic scene is interrupted for business. Our

protagonist gets up to splash some water on his face. In the bathroom he stares into the mirror and

for the first time we see the embodiment of the consciousness we have been tuned in to.

Unfortunately for Oscar, the drug deal is a set up for betrayal. He is shot by an overzealous

Tokyo police officer and dies on the floor of a bathroom stall. The blood pools around our vision, the

blinking becomes languid, slow, and finally Oscar ceases to breathe. However, this is where the

movie becomes really interesting. Oscar’s vision never goes black. Rather, his sight, now unblinking

and disembodied, floats above the cacophonous crime scene below. According to Robert Thurman’s

translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, “during the between state, the consciousness is

embodied by a ghost­like between body, made of subtle energies structured by the imagery in the

mind, similar to the subtle embodiment we experience in dreams.” (Tibetan Book of the Dead, 45)

The perspective of the subtle energy rises up into a light on the ceiling and the screen is

consumed with its pulsating penetrating light, blinding the viewer with its emptiness. However, as

quickly as this vacuum of light is found, the disembodied spirit recoils from it and continues to

explore the physical remnants of the murder. Thurman describes this part of death as, “confusion

about what has happened to them, residual unconsciousness from the stage of imminence, and terror

of being cut loose in the universe prevent them from recognizing their deepest home in this clear

light translucency.” (Tibetan Book of the Dead 44)

It is obvious to the audience that this subtle energy is still very much attached to the physical

world. Its limitless ability to traverse time and space begins to allow a story to reveal the reasons

why. The tragedy of Oscar’s short life is discovered through his sister’s inconsolable grief. Through

51

memory, we see their parents die in a car crash, we see them separated into foster care, and we see

them lonely and afraid without each other. The rest of the film elaborately weaves between

observing the grief of loved ones and swimming deeply through ecstatic and torturous memories. As

the film continues, forms begin to bleed into one another; realities, memories, and fantasies swirl

together. Human nature reveals itself to be largely perverse and cruel in the Tokyo streets, but this

disembodied consciousness has its eyes wide open without flinching. Regarding the dynamism of

disembodied spirits, Thurman claims, “During the between state time, due to its fluidity and the

subtlety of their Energy embodiment, their consciousness is magical in power and extremely

intelligent.” (Tibetan Book of the Dead, p.45)

The viewer is galvanized into falling deeply into inner space and these fathoms are marked by

an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, through the recurring image of a fetus.

Whether in deep space of the inner or outer realms, the fetus symbolizes rebirth of consciousness. In

Enter the Void, the allusions to the Tibetan Book of the Dead are overt and so the emergence of the

fetus reminds the subtle energy that rebirth is an option. It can return to human form. The last part of

the Tibetan Book of the Dead contains advice for choosing the right womb to reincarnate into. In a

lingering hypnagogic scene, the disembodied spirit glides above many scenes of intercourse, viewing

the sexual energies as prismatic light. However, only the womb of his sister who has coupled with

his best friend actually draws the subtle energy in. The audience is shown the primal scene of

spermatazoa gushing towards the glowing ovum, where in the fusion of gametes the seed of life is

germinated. This may seem sentimentally appealing to the viewer, but according to the Tibetan Book

of the Dead, the womb should be chosen for reasons outside of “emotional addictions, lust, hate, or

delusion” (Thurman, 194) This makes the tone of the film decidedly tragic throughout, as Oscar

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lived a painful life, was murdered, and then was unable to transcend that suffering in his next

reincarnation.

His time spent in the bardo or the between was an amalgam of the confusion and suffering he had

known as an individual human. The profound sense of discomfort experienced in his lifetime

compelled Oscar to explore consciousness and ponder enlightenment. His protracted psychedelic

experience prior to his death was a foreshadowing of his spirit’s true nature, which was freed from

the constraints of physical reality during his ecstatic and penetrating DMT meditation. Strangely, his

experience as a subtle energy in the bardo bore more resemblance to the troubles of life, sans the

spatial­temporal limitations. The bardo was a journey of painful encounters, where forms dissolved

yet memories still haunted and attachments remained unsevered. Death as a mode of transcendence

was not yet possible for Oscar, and so his attraction to reincarnate into his sister’s womb seems

justified. In an incorporeal way, the impetus was to exit the bardo by entering the void.

Though the film does not have an overtly triumphant ending, the sacred themes are nevertheless

persistent. The Tibetan Book of the Dead provides a context for the binary between life and death,

which presents a holistic continuum as the model for understanding consciousness in the universe.

As Thurman says, ‘‘Tibetans considered it a matter of common sense and scientific fact that animate

beings exist along a continuum of lives, and that death, between, and rebirth processes follow a

predictable pattern.’’ (Tibetan Book of the Dead, 18) Therefore, the whole process of the expansion

of consciousness is sacred to the Tibetans and even the woeful outcome of Oscar’s experience is an

exalted aspect of the divine. The void can be thought of as any emptiness that is sought for want of

wisdom. In the afterlife, the Tibetans encourage that the deceased seek the void made of clear light,

but Oscar’s choice is just as noble in terms of the voyage to enlightenment.

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Works Cited

Fremantle, F. (2001). Luminous Emptiness. Boston: Shambala Publications. Noe, G. (2009).Enter the Void [Motion picture]. France: IFC Films. Sambhava, P., & Thurman, R. (1994). The Tibetan Book of the Dead: The Great Book of Natural Liberation Through Understanding in the Between. New York: Bantam.

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Oracular Spectacular: Divination in Tibetan Buddhism

Abstract: Though divination is often relegated to a category of superstition by scholars and religious practitioners alike, the system of Mo used in Tibetan Buddhism functions as a Bodhisattvic service to those in need of guidance as well as a metonymic tool for understanding the Buddhist philosophy of causal interdependence and interrelation. Rather than being completely usurped as an irrelevant worldview, many Bon practices, such as the Mo system of divination and other oracular arts, became imbued with profound philosophical purpose through Buddhism. This paper researches the history of divination systems in Tibet, as well as examining the intricate relationship between the divinatory practices and the philosophies that correlate with Buddhism. More specifically, have found the connection between divination and the Buddhist principles of compassion and the concept of Pratitya Samutpada. I have also uncovered how the use of Mo can be considered instrumental in attaining enlightenment by illuminating the existence of mutually emergent phenomena and interdependence in the universe. “There is one common flow, one common breathing, all things are in sympathy. The whole

organism and each one of its parts are working in conjunction for the same purpose . . . the great

principle extends to the extremist part, and from the extremist part it returns to the great

principle, to the one nature, being and not­being”. ­ Hippocrates 2

The ancient wisdom of Hippocrates no longer describes the status quo Western model of

reality, which for many centuries has been based on strictly linear conceptions of time and space.

Thus, compartmentalization and individuation have been promoted rather than interconnectivity.

(Cook, 1975, p.6) Due to the bias still held towards the perspective of linear causality and

empiricism, it is not surprising that general attitudes towards practices, such as divination, still

have a reputation for being pseudo­scientific nonsense. This bias against divination, so common

in the West, does not exist in all cultures and it certainly never existed in Tibet: a country where

religious practices have produced powerful systems of oracular arts. Therefore, Tibet’s ancient

and complex divination techniques offer a wealth of information for the study of semiotic,

2 The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Complete Digital Edition p.490

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acausal, or paranormal phenomena. Through analysis of the Tibetan divinatory system Mo, as

well as the integral role played by the Nechung Oracle in Tibetan statecraft, I will argue that

divination provides the practice of Tibetan Buddhism with a tool to accept or discard certain

aspects of experience in order to achieve the highest good for all sentient beings. In Tibetan

traditions, divination is not a marginal pastime, but is in fact central to the ontological

understanding that envisions an omnipresent energetic interrelatedness in the cosmos.

Buddhism first came to Tibet in the 7th century, and over the course of the next several

centuries, developed a unique and complex history of syncretism with the indigenous practices of

the Bon religion. The ancient traditions of Bon were magical and animistic in character, yet the

practice of Buddhism did not completely displace this knowledge, even after many violent

attempts to suppress them. (Pearlman, 2002, p. 54) Rather than being completely usurped as an

irrelevant worldview, many Bon practices, such as the Mo system of divination and other

oracular arts, became imbued with profound philosophical purpose through Tibetan Buddhism.

Though divination is often relegated to a category of superstition by scholars and religious

practitioners alike, the system of Mo used in Tibetan Buddhism functions as a Bodhisatvic

service to those in need of guidance as well as a metonymic tool for understanding the Buddhist

philosophy of causal interdependence and interrelation. (Powers,2008, p.39)

Divination is not an underground occult practice in Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, His Holiness the

Dalai Lama is outspoken about his personal practice of Mo divination; his regular counsel with the

Nechung Oracle and his own belief that divination is a phenomenological way of knowing as accurate

and reliable as the scientific method of inquiry. In a 2012 talk, the Dalai Lama commented on his basic

philosophy towards knowledge saying, "Buddhist practice is to use intelligence to the maximum to

transform our emotions...When we investigate reality, we cannot find something independently,

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intrinsically existent. Ignorance, our misconception about reality, is the basis of our destructive

emotions. The counterforce is reason, taking a scientific approach to correcting our view."(September

25th, 2012) Therefore, the Dalai Lama does not divorce himself from reason when using divination, but

is rather embracing a methodology which is validated by the acknowledgement of mutually emergent

phenomena and interdependence in the universe.

A system of knowledge, such as Mo, utilizes the rolling of dice to derive interpretive

information about the past, present and future. This method of deriving meaning from random

chance may seem utterly illogical and nonsensical to Western minds which presuppose that all

phenomena must be causally understood. Carl Jung addressed the consciousness with which

divination can be better understood by Westerners in an essay entitled, Synchronicity: An

Acausal Connecting Principle. Jung’s concept of synchronicity is not an explanation of

mechanics, but is rather an elucidating description of the phenomena of “meaningful

coincidence” and the sympathy which defines the commonality of all things. His point about

synchronicity was that events may be intelligently correlated into a narrative without need of

linear causality. Jung’s conclusions were based on his many years of study into dreams and

divinatory systems such as the I Ching from ancient China. In Buddhist philosophy,

synchronicity is a reflection of the concept of pratityasamutpada, which defines the concept of

interdependent origination and is also the complementary term to the concept of sunyata or

emptiness. (Thiele, 2011, p.17)

In Mahayana Buddhism, the basis of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, there is profound

focus on developing consciousness of interdependence rather than relying on linear causality.

Thus, in Buddhism, dependence and emptiness are two sides of the same coin. The founder of

Mahayana Buddhism, a philosopher named Nagarjuna, devoted his writings and teachings to

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demonstrate the nature of all phenomena as being empty, interconnected and dependent. The

concept of emptiness was meant to allude to the knowledge that all beings are “empty” of

distinct or singular existence. (Thiele, 2011, p.18) According to Nagarjuna’s perspective, the

only phenomena that could be observed was change and since all is mutually interrelated,

nothing existed inherently. This is the conclusion of the dynamic between pratityasamutpada

and sunyata. (Cook, 1975, pp. 39­42) These philosophies break through the limitations of linear

causality and the habits of dualistic thinking in favor of acknowledging infinite interdependence.

Therefore, in Tibet, divination techniques such as Mo offer insights into the interdependence

between external phenomenon and internal psychic states; between physical occurrences and

archetypal symbols.

In the 21st century, the gap between rationality and intuition made so wide during the

Enlightenment era, is rapidly narrowing. Though armed with its own specific methodology of

causality, hard science has become actively involved in many of them same quandaries as

mysticism. Over the last century, the laws of the physical universe were completely rewritten by

many paradigm­shifting scientific theories. A notable example is Bell’s Theorem, which states

that two particles can interact, separate, and yet still respond to one another across seemingly

vast distances of space. (Thiele, 2011, Ch.7) This demonstrates that unseen interconnectedness

underlies the known universe, a law that runs in tandem with–and arguably expresses itself

through–the art of divination.

The introduction to the translated Mo text reminds the reader:

“Mo should not be seen as a spurious religious practice, unconnected with the profound

teachings of the Buddha which underlie the life of the Tibetan people. In Buddhism, it has

been taught that the highest good is to benefit other living beings. This is exemplified by the

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bodhisattva, a being who strives to gain the stage of pure and perfect enlightenment for the

sake of all sentient beings.” (Goldberg, 2000, p.2)

In terms of a religious practice, Mo has long been a reliable method for the Bodhisattva

to gain insight into the future in times of need, confusion and sickness for the Tibetan people.

Mo divination is performed ritually by a lama who propitiates the Bodhisattva of Wisdom,

Manjushri, through mantra and visualization. Next the dice are rolled, resulting in one of

thirty­six possible outcomes, which correspond to specific passages in an accompanying text. If

the divination finds illness or bad spirits present, the lama performs the necessary prayers and

offerings to the deities on the querents behalf. (Goldberg, 2000, p.3) The most common Mo text

used in present day is the work of the great master Jamgon Mipham, who was a scholar of the

sacred texts expounded by the Buddha, as well as, “the ten sciences of arts and crafts including:

health science (gso ba), language (sgra), logico­epistemology (tshad­ma), soteriology (nang

don), poetry (snyan ngag), lexicology (mngon brjod), prosody(sdeb sbyor), dramaturgy (zlos

gar), and astrology (dkar rtsis).” (Phuntsho, 2005, p. 67) Jamgon Mipham’s Mo system is based

upon the Kalachakra Tantra; esoteric teachings that envision time as an interrelation of complex

cycles, out of which it can be known that human beings and the cosmos are interdependent.

(Jhado Rinpoche, 2002, p.11­18)

Mo is just one expression of a profound spiritual philosophy in Tibet that evokes a sense of the

divine through the knowledge of interdependent origination. However, there are many means of

accessing mystical revelation and insight. The Dalai Lama frequently uses Mo for his own

personal decision making, but he also seeks counsel from a man called the Nechung Oracle, who

has a totally different art of divinatory practice. In the Dalai Lama’s autobiography Freedom in

Exile,(1990) he reveals how important oracular powers of prophecy are to the Tibetan tradition.

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Just as with Mo, the Tibetan divinatory art of oracular prophecy is focused upon the Bodhisatvic

path. The Dalai Lama stresses that the oracles not only foretell the future, but that they also heal,

protect and assist people in practicing their Dharma.( p.211)

The Dalai Lama regularly seeks personal counsel with the Nechung Oracle, who is the

principle oracle for the Tibetan Government. The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines an oracle

as “a person through whom a deity is believed to speak.” In former times, before the Chinese

invasion, there were hundreds of oracles in Tibet, but even in present day the Nechung oracle has

been preserved as an invaluable guide for the leader of Tibet. Regarding the deity for whom the

Nechung Oracle speaks, the Dalai Lama (1990) wrote, “Through him manifests Dorje Drakden,

one of the protector divinities… Nechung originally came to Tibet with a descendent of the

Indian sage. For hundreds of years now it has been traditional for the Dalai Lama and the

government to consult Nechung oracle during the New Year festivals...I myself have dealings

with him several times a year...” (p. 212)

The Dalai Lama has shared some of his profound dealings with the Nechung Oracle,

including one regarding the topic of the political aggression that threw him into exile. In 1947,

the Nechung Oracle prophesied that in 1950 Tibet would face great difficulty. The Dalai Lama

recounts this incident in his autobiography saying, “I well remember a particular incident that

occurred when I was about 14. The Oracle was asked a question about China. Rather than answer it

directly, he turned towards the east and began bending forward violently. It was frightening to watch,

knowing that this movement combined with the weight of the massive helmet he wore on his head would

be enough to snap his neck. He did it at least 15 times, leaving no one in any doubt about where the

danger lay…” (p.213) It was 1950 in fact, when the Chinese Liberation Army first invaded Tibet

and it would appear that all those present for the Nechung Oracle’s prophecy had been

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exceedingly forewarned of this danger. In 1959, as a completely devoted protector, the Nechung

Oracle accompanied His Holiness on his exile on foot all the way to India. (Pearlman, 2002, p.

94)

Considering the political history of Tibet and China in the latter part of the 20th century,

and the current exile of the Dalai Lama, it is clear that even the most miraculous oracular arts

cannot prevent disasters, tragedies, and unfortunate occurrences. The Dalai Lama knew long

before he was exiled that he would be threatened with exile, and yet he was unable to avoid it.

This proves that the purpose of divination is not always to become the victor in a situation or to

always have the advantage. Divination is instead a system of knowledge meant to direct spiritual

seekers away from folly and towards wisdom. In Mo, before the dice is ever thrown to divine the

future, the incantation of Bodhisatva Manjushri is chanted, which says:

OM! O you glorious Manjushri, you who possess the Eye of Transcendent Wisdom, you

who see past, present and future without limit, please hear me! By the Power of the Truth

of the real, interdependently arising Three Jewels and Three Roots, please clarify what

should be accepted and what discarded. (Mipham, 2000, p.5)

Manjushri is known by Tibetans to give the gift of divination only as a means of

transcendent wisdom which supports the path to enlightenment. It is clear that the purpose of Mo

is to aid people in accepting and discarding certain aspects of experience in order to achieve the

highest good for themselves and all sentient beings.Therefore, to inquire about the future from a

Bodhisatvic deity is to receive information and insight that expects wisdom to be nurtured

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through cessation of suffering and sometimes through the ennobling experiences of great trial

and tribulation.

By illuminating the existence of mutually emergent phenomena and interdependence in

the universe, Tibetan divination systems are an expression of profound spiritual philosophy that

provides insight into the sympathy and flow between all organisms. The realm of divination

exists outside of mundane spatial­temporal limitations, where all habits of dualistic thinking are

dissolved and the divide between the memorial past and the intangible future are blurred. Life

reveals itself to be a cyclical process of evolving consciousness and it is this knowledge that

deepens into wisdom.

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Works Cited

Cook, F. H. (1977). Hua­yen buddhism: the jewel net of indra. University Park: Pennsylvania

State University Press.

Dalai Lama. (1990). Freedom in exile: the autobiography of the Dalai Lama. New York, NY:

HarperCollins.

Goldberg, J. (2000). MO: Tibetan divination system. Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Publications.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama Meets Vietnamese Group for Discussion. (2012, September 24).

Retrieved March 14, 2015

Jung, C. & Hull, R. (2014). The Collected Works of C.G. Jung: Complete Digital Edition.

N.J.: Princeton University Press.

“Jung, C., & Hull, R. (1973). Synchronicity: An acausal connecting principle. Princeton, N.J.:

Princeton University Press.”

Pearlman, E. (2002). Tibetan sacred dance: a journey into the religious and folk traditions.

Rochester,

Vt.: Inner Traditions.

Phuntsho, K. (2005). Mipham's dialectics and the debates on emptiness: To be, not to be or

neither.

London: RoutledgeCurzon.

Powers, J. (1998). Concise Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca, N.Y., USA: Snow Lion

Publications.

Thiele, L. P. (2011). Indra's net and the midas touch: living sustainably in a connected

world. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

63

Think For Yourself, Question Authority: The Eight Circuits of Consciousness

Abstract: There is no historical institution or modern paradigm that has any satisfactory answers about “why” we are here and “how” we have come to be this way. Despite all the leaps and bounds of progress which humanity has made in terms of information technology, true knowledge is still in shadows. This is why, Dr. Timothy Leary, always said, “Think for yourself, Question authority.” The primacy of individual experience must not be forfeited in order to appease the status quo ideologies of the time. This essay is a review of my research into the use of Dr. Leary’s method for reimprinting the nervous system for the purpose of healing and attaining profound joy and creative experience. This is a system which acknowledges the human power to change belief and to have complete autonomy over their experience, despite what their original imprinting and conditioning may have predisposed them to. The eight circuits of consciousness model is an empowering theory of psychology that proclaims the human spirit to be free once the intention is set and the journey is begun.

Cultural norms inevitably result in the oppression of certain peoples. When society

demarcates what is “normal” regarding age, sex, gender and race, it has invariably done so at the

exclusion of individuals and cultural groups that do not fit those categories. The insistence that

there is a metaphysical essence of “normal” has been the cause of countless millennia of bigotry,

oppression, slavery and genocide perpetrated by Western patriarchy against women, people of

color, the LGBT community, and children and the elderly alike. Likewise, scientific and

philosophical knowledge inevitably result in the repression and prohibition of ideas and practices

that challenge the dominant narrative. This has been witnessed in history in the likes of

Copernicus, Galileo and Giordano Bruno.

In this paper I will argue that humanity is evolving toward a new consciousness–as

evidenced in our present information­rich cybernetic age–and that the cultural norms and

scientific knowledge that maintain order through oppression and repression are the albatross on

the neck of humanity’s evolution. Information no longer requires great distances and long

generations to move between cultures and civilizations; it is transported in an instant. As such, it

demands that we open ourselves to unorthodox ideas and practices that can loosen the albatross’

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grip on humanity and catalyze real progress. This means accepting new ideas that seem

uncanny, as well as revisiting old practices that do not fit the current scientific paradigm–in other

words, rescuing the baby that was thrown out with the bath water.

In constructing my argument, I will analyze readings from the current course, “Norms

and Knowledge,” alongside readings from the course taken at the same time last year, “The

Sacred.” The readings from the current course that I will employ are: “Fortress L.A.” by Mike

Davis; “The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy

Tales” by Lori Baker­Sperry and Liz Grauerholz; In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts by Gabor

Mate; and “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” by Guy Deutscher. The readings

from the Sacred that I will reference are: The Sacred and Profane by Mircea Eliade; The

Varieties of Religious Experience by William James; and The Sacred Vine of Spirits by Ralph

Metzner. As a theoretical basis for this analysis, I will adopt Timothy Leary’s Eight Circuit

Model of Consciousness, which I have interpreted from his book, Info Psychology, wherein he

presents a “neurogenetic epistemology” that represents the ideals of the latter part of the 20th

Century. Leary’s work (including this theory) was repressed and prohibited for challenging the

norms and knowledge of that time, and for postulating that the evolution of human consciousness

was a sacred process that would one day catapult us into outer space.

Timothy Leary remains a controversial figure to this day, but it is important to remember

that he was once a very well respected Harvard psychologist, who was given grants and research

assistants to study the therapeutic effects of psilocybin mushrooms and LSD. As a doctor of

psychology working at Harvard, one can assume that the Edwardian­era Harvard psychologist

William James–who made a career out of his voracious fascination with altered states of

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consciousness–inspired Timothy Leary. Dr. Leary indeed followed in James’ footsteps,

revolutionizing psychology and American culture with his psychedelic drug studies and insisting

that his findings proved their potential for healing and positive consciousness change. In the

early 1960’s, Dr. Leary was fired from Harvard University for dabbling in studies that might

tarnish the reputation of the department. Less than five years later, all psychedelic research was

made illegal without any regard for the healing potentials that had been discovered.

Out of his legal (and later illegal) research, Dr. Leary developed a theory he called the

Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness, which maps the human nervous system (our computer

processor of norms and knowledge) through eight phases of evolution, from the most primal

fight or flight response to the most esoteric states of conscious experience. According to Leary,

the eight circuits evolved across time along with human civilization. As a human being develops

across their lifespan, they evolve through the first four circuits. The nervous system is imprinted

from infancy through adulthood by environmental, familial and social factors. The norms and

knowledge of a given tribe or society are imprinted upon the individual through these

developmental periods (or circuits). I will now explain how the eight circuits relate to what I

have studied in the Humanities program–how the four lower terrestrial circuits relate to the study

of Norms and Knowledge, and how the four higher extraterrestrial circuits relate to the Sacred.

The first circuit, also called the bio­survival circuit, is the period of development that is

analogous to Freud’s oral stage of development. This is the aspect of consciousness that is

imprinted in our early infancy when our only concerns are suckling and cuddling. We can often

clearly observe what kinds of imprints were made during this period simply by noticing how

healthy an individual’s relationship with food and feelings of basic security are. When a person

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has been imprinted with insecurity and hunger in their first circuit development, neuroses that

mirror these feelings of want are often present.

In his book In The Realm of the Hungry Ghosts, Dr. Gabor Mate notes that there are

obvious links between childhood and addiction, caused by early imprints. He describes how first

circuit imprinting intertwines instincts and emotions: "When infants are anxious or upset, they

are offered a human or a plastic nipple­in other words, a relationship with either a natural

nurturing object or something that closely resembles it. That’s how emotional nourishment and

oral feeding or soothing becomes closely associated in the mind…emotional deprivation will

trigger a desire for oral stimulation or eating just as surely as your hunger will.” (Mate, p. 243)

Many different theories agree that the imprints made during the bio­survival period continue to

affect the knowledge one has of the world from a primal emotional standpoint. Imprints during

this phase will also reinforce what is normal to feel in terms of emotional security.

The second circuit, also called the emotional­territorial circuit, is the period of

development that is analogous with Freud’s anal stage of development. It is evolved into during

one’s toddler years and it is concerned with the first consciousness of politics, meaning that as

soon as the child begins walking there is a confrontation with assessing one’s territory and one’s

own power in relation to the power of others. This is the time when a human being learns where

they are in the scheme of things, usually in relation to their parents, siblings, and playmates.

This time inspires us to play games and engage in other activities that highlight the order of

hierarchies. Though this part of development is necessary, one can see that the

emotional­territorial circuit is the very basis of the adult geopolitical scene, which is the

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foundation of rigid state structures that uphold the cultural norms of society that result in

oppression.

How a person is imprinted in their second circuit development is reflected in their

personal relationship with hierarchy and power, as well as in their society’s concepts of the body

politic. Mike Davis writes voluminously about the city of Los Angeles, which architecturally

represents a tightly controlled police state that has little tolerance for anything unpredictable,

especially the poor, the youth and crowds of any people. Davis describes the strategies for

crowd control in Los Angeles, highlighting the aggressive nature of the city planning. He says,

"In this quest for spatial discrimination, the aims of contemporary architecture and the police

converge most strikingly around the problem of crowd control…They set up architectural and

semiotic barriers that filter out the undesirables. They enclose the mass that remains, directing

its circulation with behaviorist ferocity.” (p. 179, Davis)

Negative imprints on the emotional­territorial second circuit are the cause for most of the

turmoil in the world today. This includes racism, sexism, classism, and any other belief system

that encourages oppression. In psychological theory, one can see that individuals and institutions

that promote oppression and rigid hierarchies are unconsciously acting like selfish toddlers

embroiled in a tantrum.

The third circuit, also known as the symbolic­artifactual stage, is the period of

development concerned with the language, symbols, and tools of one’s tribe. This is the period

of development where one begins to view the world through a consensus reality that is received

via language, mathematics, and other symbolic systems including money and geographic maps.

In his article, “Does Language Shape How You Think?” Guy Deutscher revives the unpopular

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Whorf hypothesis about language, which had fallen out of favor due to its assumptions about our

mother tongue acting as a kind of prison of cognition. This aspect of Whorf’s theory was easily

abused as a hierarchical tool of oppression (second circuit function) and so it lost influence in

favor of theories that assumed that all human cognition was essentially the same, no matter what

the language(s) of origin. (This can be viewed as an error born out of piety.)

However, in more recent years, language is being examined as more of an epigenetic

biological evolution of human consciousness (third circuit), which even merely as an expression

of environment contains drastically different conceptions of reality in terms of space and time.

Though languages are no longer conceived of as mental prisons, there is much evidence to

support the idea that different languages emphasize different priorities and therefore promote

different styles of cognition. For example, those humans whose language always acknowledges

everything in the world in relation to the four cardinal directions have a different perspective in

terms of their navigational awareness than someone whose language relates in terms of a

left­right axis. These two styles of language imagine the same space differently, due to the

imprints made upon the third circuit.

The third circuit is responsible for our ability to put different things together–data, facts,

theories, equations–in order to build new things; it is the scientific faculty of the human mind,

indeed, even the mind itself. If the second circuit is our conceptualization of space (i.e.

territorialization, nationalism, patriotism), the third circuit is our conceptualization of time (i.e.

research, experiment, analysis). Technological breakthrough depends on the third circuit’s

ability to test and analyze, to study results and to use tools to create new tools.

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The ability to continuously evolve the third circuit is one of humanity’s greatest

advantages and the plasticity available here for continuous imprinting often depends upon the

individual and the culture. Great strides in science will take a full generation to be adopted into

the mainstream worldview, as Thomas Kuhn demonstrated in The Structure of Scientific

Revolutions. As previously noted, science itself is the paragon of the third circuit’s symbolic

modeling of reality, and yet the scientific community will often find it difficult to accept new

breakthroughs that contradict long­held paradigms. Consider the Bohr­Einstein debates, in

which Niels Bohr defended the principles of quantum mechanics against Albert Einstein. As

brilliant and revolutionary a physicist as Einstein was, he remained unable to accept

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle and Born’s probability density function–both fundamental

principles of quantum theory. As Carl Sagan wrote, “Science invites us to let the facts in, even

when they don’t conform to our preconceptions.” (p. 27, Sagan)

The fourth circuit, also known as the socio­sexual circuit, is the period of development

that is analogous to Freud’s libidinal stage. This circuit is imprinted during adolescence when a

human has new imprint vulnerability due to their changing bodies and hormone levels. The most

marked associations with this circuit’s imprinting include the first experiences of sexuality, both

mental and physical. This circuit is also the foundation for a society’s values and morals as well.

The link between sexuality and morals, inherent in every society, is explained by the fact that

imprinting on the fourth circuit of consciousness informs the social and domestic responsibilities

of life. However, there is often discord between an individual’s sexual imprinting at this circuit

and the standard image of society’s morals. The more repressed a society’s concept of morality

is, the more often people will have problems of sexual identity.

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The aggressive role that society plays in delineating sexual morality can be viewed as an

attempt to control the population, the morality being a structure that encourages certain types of

growth and decline; the ratio of boys and girls; the emphasis on creating warriors or scholars. In

the United States, there is a decided push to imprint the fourth circuit with a drive to fulfill

heterosexual procreation within the structure of the Industrial­era nuclear family. For quite a

long time, there has been a backlash against this status quo programming that impedes men and

women of all sexual persuasions from more freely exploring their fourth circuit imprinting

without prejudice.

The attempt to reprogram the fourth circuit consciousness of the Western world is the

foundation of feminism, gender studies, queer studies, and most cultural studies as well. An

excellent example of the pervasiveness of morals in relation to the value of women in society

comes from Lori Baker­Sperry who says, "The feminine beauty ideal–the socially constructed

notion that physical attractiveness is one of women’s most important assets, and something that

all women should strive to achieve and maintain–is of particular interest to feminist scholars.

While the feminine beauty ideal is viewed largely as an oppressive, patriarchal practice that

objectifies, devalues, and subordinates women, it is acknowledged that many women willingly

engage in “beauty rituals” and perceive being beautiful as empowering, not oppressive." (p.1

Baker­Sperry and Grauerholz) In the Western world, men and women alike are imprinted at the

fourth circuit to engage in practices and routines that promote the belief that a woman’s value

comes from her beauty and therefore it is difficult, even for the men and women oppressed by

this belief, to alter the course of this deeply cut rivulet of habit and behavior that originated from

being imprinted this way at a crucial stage of development.

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Having explored the first four terrestrial circuits in some detail, one can clearly see the

need for the ability to change original imprints or alter their course in the lives of both

individuals and societies at large. Dr. Leary was confident that neurogenetic imprints could be

transformed through reimprinting actions, including psychedelic drugs, meditation, and creative

arts. What these activities have in common is that they put one in touch with the next four

circuits of consciousness, which are concerned with experiences outside of the

survival­territorial­conceptual­socio­sexual realms. The higher four circuits are not accounted

for in status quo society. These circuits are the territory of the artist, the shaman, and the

magician. Where the lower four circuits represent the profane, the higher four circuits represent

the sacred. The solution to the impediments put upon human evolution by our social norms lies

in the development of our consciousness toward the higher circuits–in other words, the

experience of the sacred allows us to transcend the profane.

The fifth circuit of consciousness, otherwise known as the neuro­somatic or

psychosomatic circuit, is the state in which one experiences hedonism, bliss, and sensuality that

is not necessarily dependent on sexual pleasure. Tim Leary describes this as, “When the mind

discovers that the body is a polymorphous psychosomatic Zen­pleasure­laboratory designed for

zero­gravity floating with trillions of cells merrily copulating every second, imprinted rewards

seem pale, static, and second­hand. The activating of natural body consciousness is a dramatic

step in evolution.” (p.31­32 Leary)

Leary’s eccentric description of fifth­circuit neurosomatic rapture can be related to the

so­called Overview Effect experienced by certain astronauts who see the Earth unbound by sky

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and horizon, both from space and in space. Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell had such an

experience when he saw the “Earthrise” from inside the lunar module:

“That’s a powerful experience, to see Earth rise over the surface [of the Moon]. And I

suddenly realized that the molecules in my body, and the molecules in the spacecraft and my

partners’ had been prototyped, maybe even manufactured, in some ancient generation of stars.

But instead of being an intellectual experience, it was a personal feeling… And that was

accompanied by a sense of joy and ecstasy, which caused me to say ‘What is this?’ It was only

after I came back that I did the research and found that the term in ancient Sanskrit was

Samadhi.” (YouTube)

In the ninth lecture from The Varieties of Religious Experience, author William James

attempts to elucidate the experience of religious conversion through the best figurative and

psychological language of his time. The mysterious transformation of physical or spiritual

substances is a predominant theme in most religions and alchemical pursuits. Religious

conversion is the transmutation of an individual’s consciousness, where the skeptic becomes a

believer just as lead becomes gold. Though language often fails to truly describe or qualify such

intangible spiritual experiences, James was determined to observe and record the workings of the

“subconscious” mind to the best of his ability. He noted that both psychology and religion

“admit that there are forces seemingly outside of the conscious individual that bring redemption

to life.” (James, 1902, lec. 9) This redemption represents the acknowledgement of the insoluble

phenomenon of the fifth circuit experience of rapture, ecstasy and bliss.

The sixth circuit, also known as the neuroelectric or metaprogramming circuit consists of

the nervous system becoming aware of itself. This is one of the circuits that is known to be

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activated by LSD and Dr. Leary considered it to be essential to undergo the dissolution of the

profane self in order to experience the dramatic transformations that people with severe neuroses

are looking for. A person experiencing sixth­circuit phenomena will have a pervasive sense of

synchronicity in their lives, where formerly random acts become imbued with significance that

reflect the individual’s motives and emotions. In other words, everything becomes infused with

meaning. The experience of becoming aware of one’s self is what Dr. Leary described as the

“sixth­sense,” or “the ability to pick up messages beyond the audio­visual­chemical­tactile range

of the neurosomatic circuit.” (p.122, Leary)

A pervasive example of a type of sixth circuit level of consciousness that many people

experience is found in conceptions of the afterlife. Though belief in an afterlife may contradict

empirical reality, it thrives nevertheless because it provides a vast scope for the imagination to

dissolve the boundaries between life and death. In a state of sixth circuit consciousness,

empirical reality is of little consequence; whereas subjective interpretation of dreams, feelings

and prophetic signs become paramount. This, however, does not indicate that a person who

invests their consciousness in ideas about the afterlife necessarily has any deficiency in empirical

observation or applied rationality in other contexts. Human consciousness and cognition is

naturally multifarious and capable of traversing many levels of consciousness. The sixth circuit

is an experience that encourages acceptance of the human ability to utilize paradox freely in

order to shift between models of reality.

The seventh circuit, also known as the collective neuro­genetic circuit, describes a state

of consciousness where one is freed from dualistic thinking and is allowed to freely connect with

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the macrocosmic intelligence of DNA. In this state of mind, many people occupying the more

profane circuits of consciousness would conceive of the 7th circuit mind as insane, as it often

produces irrational and intangible experiences such as reincarnation and rebirth. This is the

realm of the shaman, who undergoes agonizing initiatory processes in order to occupy the

seventh circuit of consciousness that forges his connection with the gods.

Mircea Eliade discusses this transitional process of consciousness change as it is found in

the shamanic ritual of initiation. He says, “Psychic chaos is the sign that the profane man is

undergoing dissolution and that a new personality is on the verge of birth... The scenario of

initiation is death to the profane condition, followed by rebirth to the sacred world, the world of

the gods... A celebrated example is the Indian sacrifice. Its purpose is to obtain heaven after

death, residence among the gods or the quality of a god (devatma).” (p. 195 Eliade)

The seventh circuit is also the realm of humanity’s collective mythic intelligence, also

named the collective unconscious by Carl Jung. For a few decades now, Westerners have been

seeking out the ayahuasca experience, which is an entheogenic potion made from Amazonian

plants. The traditional shamanic religious practices center on the interpretation of dream­like

and/or telepathic visions, produced by consumption of ayahuasca: the crushed and boiled “vines

of the dead” (Metzner, 2006, p. 14) As the participants behold the swirling chaos of inner space,

the ayahuascero acts as a guide who gracefully traverses these inner realms in order to facilitate

healing. Many experience multiple realms of consciousness simultaneously, creating a feeling of

omnipresence so unlike mundane subjectivity. Many people talk to and shape­shift into the

forms of powerful animal spirits, including the jaguar and the serpent. It is also expected that

one will commune with plant consciousness and with one’s ancestors. The purpose of the

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ayahuasca trance is to re­enter the realm of the primal myth, which is the realm of the seventh

circuit of consciousness where creation rolls life up from the deep, the stars are born, the oceans

swell, and where the plants and animals flourish in harmony.

The eighth circuit is known as the psycho­atomic level of consciousness. This circuit is

currently the apex of the evolutionary process and is therefore the most abstract and indefinable.

Suffice it to say that this is the realm of quantum physics, where all the known laws of

space­time reality no longer apply. Even mystics and shamans do not often experience this

circuit in everyday life. However, there are some accounts that can be qualified as eighth circuit,

including the often­controversial descriptions of near­death experiences. Dr. Leary claimed that

one of the only ways to chemically induce an eighth circuit experience was to ingest the

psychedelic compound DMT, which incidentally is the same neurochemical that is naturally

released upon the time of death. There is an intrinsic connection between the eighth circuit and

death, but it is not mournful or morbid. Rather, the connection between quantum consciousness

and death recalls the shamanic initiatory death, which seeks the rebirth of the soul at the other

end of the spectrum.

Humanity’s amour with quantum consciousness has been portrayed cinematically in the

Stargate sequence of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where the stars dissolve into

infinity, unveiling that the beginning of time and the distant future are one concrescent

realization of the numinous. In addition, the 2010 film Enter the Void (by French director

Gaspar Noe) also grapples with the eighth circuit of consciousness through its depiction of a man

who experiences a DMT trip on the very same night that he is murdered and transformed into a

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disembodied soul. The journey of his soul follows the descriptions of the Bardo as described in

the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Again, we find death near to the eighth circuit experience. In

Enter the Void, during the DMT sequence, everything from three­dimensional reality dissolves

into a mingling of fractals, ripening into different colors and spectrums. These intertwining

geometric visions lead the audience into sedate contemplation concerning the nature of the titular

void. The depiction of the Bardo bears some resemblance to life, sans the spatial­temporal

limitations, where forms dissolve yet memories still have gravitational pull. Whatever else the

film Enter the Void and the Tibetan Book of the Dead have in common, death is conceived of as

a mode of transcendence. This is the ultimate truth found in the eighth circuit level of

consciousness.

Though the current habits of humanity seem to be preventing evolution from proceeding,

there is much hope to be had since there are so many signs of breakthroughs that are focused

towards resolution of the errors of the past. The experience of the lower four circuits, no matter

how good or bad the imprinting, is necessary to catalyze the higher four circuits. Perhaps it is

the great contrast between the human potential for hatred and the human potential for love that is

ultimately the energy behind our evolutionary thrust. Sometimes the most heinous of actions

bring about the most healing of results. For example, in the case of Dr. Timothy Leary, being

thrown in prison for espousing ideas that were opposed to the government’s actually catalyzed

his position in society to a place of accidental power. His words became forbidden and therefore

they glowed more brightly than they ever could have if Dr. Leary had been a quiet citizen of no

ill repute.

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All human beings are capable of evolving into mastery of each of the eight circuits of

consciousness. However, in the world today, it is obvious that most societies are caught in

feedback loops that paralyze and impede evolutionary progress past the malfeasant expressions

of the first four circuits. Our global civilizations, which are meant to represent the best of

humanity’s capabilities, do not promote development of the higher circuits at all–preferring

instead to siphon all the evolutionary energy to be used upon issues of desperate survival,

territorial aggression, semantic supremacy, and sexual repression.

Each of the four lower circuits are bound to one another in a cycle of abusive power. The

first two circuits currently dominate most of the world, which results in the technological

acumen and rationality of the third circuit being used to justify war and oppression, thereby

creating a repressive and rigid fourth circuit societal structure. According to the eight­circuit

model of consciousness, it would appear that the world is run by the fevered tempers of

screaming children instead of philosopher kings and humanitarians. Consider what Mike Davis

writes of the hyper technological LAPD in Fortress L.A.–or the present day militarization of

local police as seen in Ferguson, MI. Consider, too, the predator drones that spoiled tantrums

and advanced linguistic minds have created to ensure that societies will remain as rigid and

frightened as those in power demand. Just because the linguistic genius and logical abilities of

human beings have always been used to justify war and violence is no excuse for it to remain so.

Though we have created the technology to feed and power the world without resorting to death

and destruction, humanity’s maligned first circuit is addicted to the comfort it feels when

witnessing the power of the second circuit’s territorial violence. This forces the third circuit’s

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rationalization, thus continuing our history of domination and oppression like an inoperable

malignant tumor.

Perhaps the idea of human evolution being a metamorphosis of terrestrial beings into

extra­terrestrial beings is merely metaphorical. Nevertheless, this metaphor reminds us of our

ever­present yearning to reach for the stars, to grow towards the sun, and to fly up and away

from the forces that impede us. Dr. Timothy Leary’s eight­circuit model provides just one

comprehensive way to understand all that humanity is capable of in terms of experience, feeling,

and expression. The sacred evolves from the profane and the process of living out these states of

consciousness is how we learn to utilize free will and seize the pleasure and pain which life doles

out, finding meaning in all of it. Transcendence lies before those who seek to understand their

own bliss and those who seek to understand their own pain. The only error lies in succumbing to

artificial stagnation and rigidity, which prohibits the quest for self­realization. This model

teaches that there is no wisdom in denying the inexplicable nor in postulating only one truth.

There must be a reason for every encounter, every reaction and every instinctual urge.

In conclusion, Dr. Leary’s most famous words contain the nucleus of wisdom that his

broad theory attempts to describe. In order to evolve, always remember to: “Think for yourself.

Question authority.”

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Work Cited Davis, M. (2006). Fortress L.A. In City of quartz: Excavating the future in Los Angeles (New

ed.). London: Verso. Deutscher, G. (2010, August 26). Does Your Language Shape How You Think? New York

Times. Edgar Mitchell’s Samhadi Experience. (2010, Sep. 16). Retrieved from

http://youtu.be/8d56dwSm2YQ Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane; the nature of religion. New York: Harcourt,

Brace. James, W. (2008). The varieties of religious experience a study in human nature. Waiheke

Island: Floating Press. Leary, T. (1994). Info­Psychology (5th ed., p. 180). Tempe: New Falcon Press. Mate, G. (2010). In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts Close Encounters With Addiction.Paw Prints. Metzner, R. (2006). Sacred vine of spirits: Ayahuasca. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street Press. Sagan, C., & Druyan, A. (1996). Science and Hope. In The demon­haunted world: Science as a

candle in the dark. New York: Random House. Spade, J., Grauerholz, L., & Baker­Sperry, L. (2008). “The Pervasiveness and Persistence of the

Feminine Beauty Ideal in Children's Fairy Tales.” In The kaleidoscope of gender: Prisms, patterns, and possibilities(2nd ed.). Los Angeles, Calif.: Sage Publications.

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Uranus, Unbound! The Promethean Spirit of the Romantic Era

Abstract: This essay correlates the astrological interpretation of the discovery of the planet Uranus with the spirit of the Romantic era. In astrology, the planets represent aspects of human consciousness which play out through complex dynamics. The cathartic power of astrological language lies in transforming the belief in fate to a belief in dynamic motion. It lies in recognizing the potential to use the power of language and emotion to reinforce the potential for boundless transformation!The planet Uranus, having been discovered in this time, represents a moment when Western man discovered a new depth of innovative and imaginative ability, one that demanded revolution and rebellion against the tyrannical structures of religion, politics, and even science. I examine some revealing expressions of this Uranian energy in some of the most notable writings of this time, including the novel Frankenstein. My hope is that through the evocation of this spirit of imagination and innovation in Romantic writings, I will continue to find the inspiration to overcome the tyranny of my own time with a confident belief in the power of the human spirit to defy corruption and ideological slavery.

On Tuesday March 13th 1781, just before midnight, an amateur astronomer named William

Herschel spotted a new unidentified disk­like object moving through the constellation of Gemini. What

he had seen in the night sky was not a comet, with a tail and a beard but was in fact the solid body of a

planet known to the world today as Uranus! Previous to the spring of 1781, astronomers and astrologers

alike had thought the edges of the universe rested upon the planet Saturn. To discover a heavenly body

that lay beyond Saturn exploded the former limitations of the known universe. This discovery is one of

the paradigm shifting moments in the history of science, and is therefore one of the great legends of the

Romantic era. (Holmes 23) The discovery of Uranus, the first new planet to be found in a thousand

years, is a blazing emblem of all that the Romantic era represents: innovation, revolution, discovery,

genius and inspiration in the face of oppression. (Forrest 148) It is this energy of liberation that is still

enacting itself upon society today, in the face of the oppressive force dispensed by the shape­shifting

ideologies of the State. Therefore, it is essential for the modern subject interested in macrocosmic

evolution to gain inspiration from the initial seizure of excitement that the Romantic era has left for the

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ages! In this essay, I shall examine this cathartic Uranian energy through the poetic writings of Samuel

Coleridge, William Wordsworth, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley. My

intention is to evoke the essence of Romanticism in order to interpret the influence of Uranian energy in

modern society.

In astrological terms, Uranus represents the destruction of old ideologies and it is therefore the

ruler of individuality, liberation from bondage and electricity. (Forrest 153­54) Saturn on the other hand,

represents the “psychic process that utilizes pain, restriction and bondage” to stimulate evolution.

(Greene 11­18) Therefore, when Uranus was discovered, it was a moment of catharsis for humanity, as

the consciousness of limitation and impediments had reached a breaking point, forcing political and

economic structures to crumble under the weight of social and technological innovation. The most

prolific mythological character of the late 18th century was without a doubt, the Titan Prometheus from

the Greeks, who can be associated with Uranus in terms of symbolic function. As Richard Tarnas notes

in his innovative history, Cosmos and Psyche:

“The more I examined the matter, the more I realized that every quality

astrologer’s association with the planet Uranus was reflected in the myth of

Prometheus: the initiation of change, the passion of freedom, the defiance of

authority, the act of cosmic rebellion against a universal structure to free

humanity of bondage, the urge to transcend limitation, the intellectual brilliance,

the element of excitement and risk.” (94)

The great art and philosophy of the Romantic era can be used to animate the narrative of

astrological events and weave a brilliant story of the cosmic evolution of human consciousness.

However, the consensus of most modern mentalities has long assumed that there can be nothing less

correlated than the outer limits of the mysterious cosmos and the inner universe of the human psyche.

Any assertions to the contrary are struck down with the obvious rationalism and loquacious logic that

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testify only to the empirical reality held together by its fragile need to be dogmatically defended. In his

essay, On Truth and Lie in an Extra­Moral Sense, philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche elucidates the

internal nature of dogma, saying:

“The intellect, as a means for the preservation of the individual, unfolds its chief

powers in simulation;...here deception, flattering, lying and cheating, talking

behind the back, posing, —in short, the constant fluttering around the single

flame of vanity is so much the rule and the law that almost nothing is more

incomprehensible than how an honest and pure urge for truth could make its

appearance among men.”

Because astrology threatens the rational scientific perception of truth, the subject has been made

almost completely illegitimate. Having been long exiled on the island of washed up metaphysics,

astrology has been renounced and relegated to the realm of frivolous entertainment. Conversely, inexact

measurements such as “intelligence quotients”, alongside every dull­witted entry in the Diagnostic

Statistics Manual, are validated forms of psychological discourse, invited to mix and mingle with

science, law and economics without question. Astrology is an imaginative symbolic language used to

describe the human psyche. As astrophysicists have measured, mapped, and analyzed the bits of outer

space that their instruments can reach, without a doubt they have also used their imaginations in

conjunction with their sense of probability to draw conclusions and create a collective sense of the

known universe. The story of the Big Bang is no less a mythology than the seven sisters of the Pleiades:

both narratives function to correlate known observations and create intelligent context. In terms of

human language, the stars are born and then they die; the sun rises, flares and burns bright. Outer space

exists in the mind, just as astrology does.

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Therefore, it is clear that even the most advanced knowledge of the cosmos is still best

understood through metaphoric narratives. Nietzsche comments on the nature of all language, and how

there is no objective truth in any theoretical framework, whether it is of popular opinion or not. He says:

“What, then, is truth? A mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and

anthropomorphisms—in short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced,

transposed, and embellished poetically and rhetorically, and which after long use seem

firm, canonical, and obligatory to a people: truths are illusions...”

The cold light of rationality was once a rebellion against the perceived illusions of deism and

dogmatic superstition. The prejudice against astrology as a valid form of rhetoric is an inherited cultural

aspect of the Enlightenment, which sought to prioritize empirical experience as the only way of defining

reality. The intuitive symbolic language of astrology could not withstand the onslaught of Newtonian

physics, which usurped astronomy with Reason. More importantly, astrology did not have any

application in industrial modes of production, leaving it in the dust of a bygone era. In terms of Marxist

theory, Louis Althusser, would remind the reader that cultural artifacts such as astrology fell out of favor

during the industrial revolution in order to more efficiently, ‘reproduce the means of production.’

Astrology became increasingly forgotten as the classical agrarian lifestyle described in the Works

and Days of Hesiod became rarified in favor of mechanized urban life. Hesiod’s sage advice such as,

“Avoid the thirteenth of the waxing month for beginning to sow,”(ll. 780­781) no longer had much

relevance in the lives of people obsessed by science, machinery and politics. Even more out of touch

with the zeitgeist of the time is Hesiod’s advice to work the land rather than become entangled in social

troubles:

“…do not let that Strife who delights in mischief hold your heart back

from work, while you peep and peer and listen to the wrangles of the

court­house. Little concern has he with quarrels and courts who has not a

year's victuals laid up betimes, even that which the earth bears, Demeter's

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grain.” (ll. 25­41)

During the industrial revolution, Hesiod’s farmer's almanac of wisdom, much like the entire practice of

astrology, was reduced to the realm of platitudes and dismissed as a valid reference for living one’s life

properly.

Though it is common to view history in terms of dialectics, which in the case of the

Enlightenment versus Romanticism makes sense, the study of astrology imparts an elegant evolutionary

narrative with archetypal energies embodying the highlights of history. In astrology, all forms are

imbued with life and major historical events are viewed as ecologically interconnected with a purpose

towards evolution. An astrological historical lens perceives all triumph and all tragedy as aspects of the

dynamic motion of growth, embodied in the rotations and orbits of the various heavenly archetypes.

Astrology is the living mythology of the grand human narrative that absorbs all knowledge, all

occurrences, and all symbols.

It is often in dreams, not waking life that the divine light of inspiration appears. Therefore, in the

Romantic era, in pursuit of genius, people on the leading edge of thought became reacquainted with

mysticism, dreams, and altered states of consciousness. The zeitgeist was attuned to a cosmic image of a

magnificent electric storm; jagged white­hot light whipping the ground, crackling trees bursting into

flame and everything buzzing with a rapturous new energy as beautiful as it was dangerous. The ghost of

Archimedes cried, “Eureka!” as this cathartic explosion was finally realized to be the sacrificial offering

of the light of human consciousness. And thus the Romantic era was born as the wild love child of

Uranus.

The thematic symbols of the Romantic era can be distilled down to be represented by the single

image of the Promethean fire from heaven. This of course was partly due to the discovery of electricity

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as a force that could be harnessed into conductive metals. However, it is also a metaphor to illustrate the

concept of genius, a human who is struck by divine inspiration and who is able to channel the energy

into their work, whether that be scientific, philosophical or artistic. The belief in divine catharsis and

creation abounded in this time and was used as the foundation of the creation story for Newton’s law of

gravity, where the apple hits him on the head, as well as Coleridge’s Kubla Khan, where his laudanum

induced waking dream transports him to the realm of mythology. (Holmes 96) This trope was used to

even greater effect by Mary Shelley for the story of the genesis of Frankenstein, included in the 1831

introduction, where she says:

“When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be

said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me,

gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far

beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw—with shut eyes, but acute

mental vision, —I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling

beside the thing he had put together.” (188)

Mary Shelley is explicitly describing the nature of a mystical vision, while implicitly referring to the

wild Uranian energy of genius. The lore of Frankenstein is a part of the collective lore of inspired

genius!

Romanticism in general is often regarded as historically antithetical to science. The discovery of

Uranus, which ushered in the energy of innovation and rebellion, catalyzed many to undertake deep

questioning and critique of anything socially institutionalized. Therefore, many artists and philosophers

of this time decried all the scientific thought that had transformed into rigid ideology. These sentiments

can easily be found in the writings of the most prominent authors of this movement. For example, in his

1804 poem, Jerusalem, William Blake says:

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“…I must Create a System. Or be enslav’d by another

Man’s. I will not Reason and Compare: My business is to

Create…”

One can find more critique on the methods of scientific inquiry in William Wordsworth’s 1798 poem,

The Tables Turned, where he says:

“…Sweet is the lore which Nature brings; Our meddling intellect;

Mis­shapes the beauteous forms of things:

­­We murder to dissect.”

Both of these poets are describing science as an impediment to genius, rather than a vehicle for it. These

men believed in Nature, as the mysterious realm of the infinite which is an everlasting fountain of

inspiration can be found for one who is attuned to creation without artifice or ideology. This sentiment is

echoed in Lord Byron’s poem from 1818 poem, Apostrophe to the Ocean:

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely

shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its

roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more…”

However, as Byron says, the Romantics loved not man less as they opened their minds to the

mysterium tremendum of Nature. Science, therefore, was not exclusively the enemy of Romanticism, as

it offered a means to uncover its patterns, histories and secrets. There were many ideals that were shared

by the rational scientists and the Romantic poets. As Richard Holmes says in his book, The Age of

Wonder, “The idea of the exploratory voyage, often lonely and perilous, is in one form or another a

central and defining metaphor of Romantic science.” (196) The exploratory voyage has so much scope

for the imagination that it inspired a, “a new intensity and excitement in scientific work. It was driven by

a common ideal of intense, even reckless, personal commitment to discovery.” (190) Uranus represents

the fire of passionate inquiry, and so the Romantic era is a time of triumph for voyages of discovery.

This is both literal and metaphoric. As a profoundly archetypal novel, it can be duly noted that Mary

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Shelley opens Frankenstein with the character of Captain Robert Walton, a Romantic scientist who is

sailing to Antarctica to uncover the secrets withheld in Nature’s most lonely and abandoned places.

“What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I may there discover

the wondrous power, which attracts the needle and may regulate a thousand

celestial observations that require only this voyage to render their seeming

eccentricities consistent forever.” (6)

In addition to making good use of science, while remaining keenly critical, the spirit of Uranus

demanded a renaissance of religious thought from everyone interested in evolving (Uranus) past the

limitations (Saturn) of the traditional world­view. For instance, the reliance on the cosmology of the

Bible to supply all meaning and all explanation was refuted by Romantic artists and scientists alike. In

many ways, Saturn is an astrological archetype that can be associated with the wrathful God of the Old

Testament, an archaic monument of limitations, commandments and death. For revolutionary thinkers,

this God was an arcane concept that did not serve the world past the boundary where Uranian

consciousness began. The cosmological liberation felt by artists regarding the astronomical discoveries

of the day, can be viewed through what Percy Shelley wrote in his 1813 philosophical poem, Queen

Mab:

“…that all that miserable tale of Devil, and Eve, and an Intercessor, with the

childish mummeries of the God of the Jews, is irreconcilable with the

knowledge of the stars…”

As a fully embodied revolutionary thinker, enamored with the wonder and the wanderlust of his era,

Percy Shelley was in tune with the excitement of tremendous freedom from oppressive ideologies,

which would otherwise prevent his imagination from soaring into the full potential of the universe that

the discoveries of science hinted at.

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It was Percy Shelley’s atheism and enraptured love of science that became an intricate part of

Mary Shelley’s inspiration for Frankenstein. In her 1831 introduction, before the visions in the night

brought forth the story, she described Percy Shelley and Lord Byron conversing about the latest

scientific discoveries of the day. She wrote:

“…Many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley, to which I

was a devout but nearly silent listener… They talked of the experiments of Dr. Darwin,

(I speak not of what the Doctor really did, or said that he did, but, as more to my

purpose, of what was then spoken of as having been done by him,) who preserved a

piece of vermicelli in a glass case, till by some extraordinary means it began to move

with voluntary motion. Not thus, after all, would life be given. Perhaps a corpse would

be re­animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts

of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital

warmth…” (187)

Mary Shelley was absorbing the language of the shifting ideologies in regards to science. It was during

the early 19th century that the science of natural philosophy transformed into biology. The

Wunderkammer gave way to the clinical laboratory and the Linnaean categories of genus and species

transformed into more abstracted knowledge. On this transition of scientific consciousness, literary

scholar, Timothy Morton writes,

“Instead of being a grid of classification superimposed upon its objects, scientific

knowledge ‘disappears’ as it were, inside the object of knowledge.” (8)

He goes on to point out that the etymology of the word biology, indicates a search for the reason (logos)

for life (bio). (9) It was upon these notions of discovering life’s raison d'être that Dr. Galvani began

performing his convulsive experiments with corpses. During this historical time in medical science, the

sovereign power that once wielded control by condemning subjects to death was transitioning into what

Foucault calls, biopower. In the essay, Right of Death and Power over Life, he describes it as, “...the

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ancient right to take life or let live was replaced by a power to foster life or disallow it to the point of

death.” Mary Shelley was a genius because she, like Prometheus, had the forethought to surmise that the

desire to use artificial procreative power would undoubtedly become a mechanism of abuse and control

unlike any other the world had yet conceived of.

Mary Shelley, being perhaps the most gifted thinker of her circle, must have listened to the

observations of her learned gentleman friends with a tiny smile of bemusement and revulsion. As a

woman, to hear that men were attempting to seize procreative power in the name of Science was

obviously an affront that she was destined to encounter and respond to with force. As an illuminated

channel for the genius of her era, she must have heard the voice of Uranus saying:

“Science makes profound claims and has done so by providing the men of your world with the

knowledge of simple atomic systems and the correct measurements with which to mix and mingle the

elements. But listen to me dear child! The notion that Science can make any statement about what life is

or where it comes from is such hubris that the gods laugh in scorn. Does Science not fall silent when you

ask how one chooses to move one’s limbs in rhythm with music? Does Science not cower when you ask,

“Why?” Hear me! When you ask your limbs to move, for whatever reason, they do so. How does Science

measure that phenomenon? Who asks the limbs to move? It is more than mere reflex. If mind or will is

the first cause, then the phenomenon of life is far outside of Science’s grasp. You need not fear the

decrees of Science on the matters of life and death. It knows nothing of the soul, only the soul’s

container. It is my gift to you to reveal the ignorance in men’s hearts that uses knowledge as a weapon

and denies their subjectivity to procreation. Your words will evoke the illuminating truth about life for

centuries to come... now write! ”

The historical narrative that animates Mary Shelley is usually one that describes her illustrious

parentage, namely William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and it always goes on to highlight that she

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ran away with Percy Shelley at sixteen and lived her life as rootless traveller who kept company with

some of the greatest writers of her time, Lord Byron included. (Sunstein 32­111) However, astrology is

useful because it adds an extra layer to the historical specter of Mary Shelley. Born on August 30 1797,

Mary Shelley had her natal Sun in the sign of Virgo, which was conjunct to the planet Uranus. In basic

astrological interpretation, that conjunction made her an exceptionally bright and revolutionary person, a

shooting star among the fixed constellations. (Coincidentally, Percy Shelley also had a Sun/Uranus

conjunction in the sign of Leo and Lord Byron had his Moon conjunct Uranus in the sign of Cancer. ) 3

Both Mary Shelley’s heredity, as well as her natal chart can offer insight into her rebellious and spirited

nature, which exemplifies the fascinating interrelatedness that the cosmos presents to those looking for

synchronicity. Also in the sign of Virgo, Mary Shelley had the planet Mercury, the symbol of intellect

and communication. When reading her natal chart, we can conclude that Mary Shelley’s intellect was in

perfect alignment to serve her soul’s ambition to be of service to the Promethean spirit that defied all

restraints put upon creative freedom!

Mary Shelley chose the title, Frankenstein, or A Modern Prometheus as a tongue­in­cheek

comment on the utter foolishness of Victor Frankenstein, the ideal Genevan. Mary Shelley meant to

point out that a modern Prometheus, rather than a mythical one, is imprudent, unleashing consciousness

without knowing the first thing about human relationships, deep feeling or the syntax of metaphor.

Timothy Morton comments on the irony of the subtitle in his essay Shelley and the Revolution in Taste,

saying:

“The novel is not about the sin of presumption­ the Promethean theft of fire, but about

the internal failure of a Promethean project…The Modern Prometheus is laced with

irony: He steals fire only to play God. Even the creature knows the naturalistic

reformist codes better than him ­­ the very codes by which he is condemned…” (120)

3 Natal charts for Mary Shelley, Percy Shelly and Lord Byron accessed at astrotheme.com

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Shelley was commenting on how scientific education and technology could place the power of the gods

in the hands of imbeciles. She illustrates the character of Victor Frankenstein as an unworthy natural

philosopher without a shred of artistic spirit. He is a man who cannot understand the subtlety of

alchemical language, nor grasp the wisdom of the ages. It is his belief that the elixir of life is something

to be tapped without consequence, like a stream of sap that bleeds from a tree. In Frankenstein, she

creates a narrative that is darkly comedic at times, whilst using the healing power of tragedy to

illuminate the hierophanies of hubris in the modern industrial world; a society decidedly divorced from

respecting nature and its processes.

Frankenstein is more than a Faustian tale about a man overstepping his bounds and bringing hell

upon himself. The initial effect that the epistolary style of the novel produces is to create a certain

sympathy with the losses endured by Victor Frankenstein, causing the reader to first conceive of the

narrative as a basic morality tale. However, the veil that is drawn over the details of the experiments that

bring the Creature to life and the shroud that remains over the nature of that discovery, leaves one to

begin delving into deeper questions. Unlike the scientists of her day, Mary Shelley is not concerned with

how one might artificially create life or even whether or not it is possible. To the gentle reader, the

descriptions of the Creature’s hideous form, is not what is frightening about the novel. What is

frightening, and therefore provocative, is the Creature’s absolute humanity. He is in fact more human

and humane than the humans in the story. He has more soul, more pathos, and more genius than any one

of the flat and senseless characters he attempts to find kinship with. Even when the Creature begins to

murder Frankenstein’s loved ones, there is nothing ultimately inhuman about it. In fact, the reader

begins to realize that violence is simply the most effective form of communication that the Creature ever

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learned: far beyond language; religion; and philosophy; the primal rage of murder resounds like nothing

else!

The Uranian spirit of the early 19th century had an insatiable appetite for overthrowing

oppression, both through politics and through art. In Frankenstein, though the Creature was born into

hate and suffered in the cocoon of tragedy and horror, he represents the Promethean spirit of the

Romantic Era far more than the ridiculous Victor Frankenstein. The Creature embodies the ancient rage

of the imprisoned Titan, having once again been unleashed upon the encumbered inhabitants of Hesiod’s

Iron Age. Rather than being wholly submissive to his lowly position, the Creature fights back and

demands his freedom and individual sovereignty. This theme of overthrowing oppression is also present

in Percy Shelley’s poetic drama, Prometheus Unbound. Both Mary and Percy Shelley’s major literary

works contain explosions of rebellion against archaic patriarchal authority.

However, both Mary Shelley’s Creature and Percy Shelley’s Prometheus evolve past the initial

rage of berserker rebellion. Both characters are ultimately wisened by their hatred and are therefore

liberated through it. For Prometheus, whose name means forethought, sees the condemned trajectory of

experience which is only focused on hatred. Promethean consciousness contains the ideal humanity,

more human than human, and it knows that it is more exuberant to feel everything fully and then let the

natural evolution of thought change one’s direction, lest fate be all too predictable.

The imagination is everything! This was a foundational Romantic perception and it is still

important in the present collective consciousness. To borrow William Blake’s nomenclature, the Poetic

Genius is an innate aspect of humanity, giving external expression to an internal progression of

evolutionary thought. As Percy Shelley once wrote in his essay, A Defence of Poetry:

“Man is an instrument over which a series of external and internal

impressions are driven, like the alternations of an ever­changing wind

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over an Æolian lyre; which move it, by their motion, to

ever­changing melody.” (2)

Percy Shelley is illuminating the fact that the best course of evolution in terms of language, thought, and

collective expression is through creativity. He also stresses that creativity must be allowed to freely flow

through a person, as the wind flows through a harp. Human beings can only evolve their perceptions as

quickly as their language permits; therefore, the playful use of language to evoke and inspire might be

just as valid a way to push the boundaries of human evolution as the greatest scientific experiments.

Lord Byron intimates his belief in the power of poetry as a force equal to the power of science in Canto

X of Don Juan, which reads:

“To those who, by the dint of glass and vapour;

Discover stars, and sail in the wind's eye,

I wish to do as much by Poesy.”

Imagination, or the creative state of mind, is the only defense that one has against ideology that

seeks to anchor thought patterns in rigid values systems. Since the dawn of the Romantic era, the

institutions and epistemologies of Western civilization have been forever transformed, though the

mechanisms of control enacted by the state are still remarkably similar. This outburst of rebellion against

tyranny and oppression still resounds in the cultural consciousness of the 21st Century. There are many

parallels between that historical time and the present, including the revolution of economic systems

conjunct the concentration of state power to enforce cooperation with the values of the prevailing empire.

Still we fight slavery. Still we are haunted by state power at every turn. Still we suffer poverty, inequity

and ignorance of the concept that, “Beauty is Truth” and “truth beauty”. (Keats) It is worth remembering

that even before mass communication, state power still did its utmost to be felt as omnipotent and

omnipresent. Then, just as now, the “State Apparatus” (Althusser) acts as the wrathful Old Testament

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Jehovah, by applying ‘repressive’ physical force (police and military) at the same time that it induces the

populace into believing in the ideological matrix of reality as propagated through ‘religion, family,

media, law, and education’. (Althusser)

At various times during their respective careers, William Godwin, Samuel Coleridge, William

Wordsworth, and Percy Shelley were all spied on by the government for writing texts that may have

undermined the intentions of the state. (Morton 8) The demonization endured by Mary Wollstonecraft

for writing Vindications of the Rights of Women is an excellent example of a when a populace acts as an

extension of state ideology, thereby rejecting the freedom offered by new ideas. Moreover, William

Blake was put on trial for sedition for insulting a British soldier and Lord Byron was exiled from

England for various acts of what were considered sexual deviancy. It is important to note that these

artists, though some were highborn, did not dwell in the Elysian Fields or the Garden of Eden as they

furiously wrote about the power of art to be an instrument of social change. Then as now, all

revolutionaries were deemed enemies of the state. Not merely aesthetic or uplifting, art is often a

contested space of communication, and the artist as revolutionary is an archetype that has not

dissipated. Recently, culture critic Camille Paglia said in an interview with the Huffington Post,

“Ever since Romanticism, an oppositional mode, artists have the right, and

indeed the duty, to attack social convention. But it is ridiculous and in fact

self­infantilizing for them to expect to be financially supported by the general

public whom they are insulting.”

Paglia is reminding us that the role of the artist as revolutionary is never vainglorious in its own time,

but is one that endures suffering and ridicule from those who do not have the forethought, the

Promethean flame, within them.

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Though human history sees the Romantic era as having dissolved somewhere around 1850,

astrologically speaking, the influence of Uranus has been steadily progressing, enacting social change

and revolution in many ways throughout the subsequent generations. There are ebbs and flows of the

Uranian spirit, none so well remembered in recent history as the Uranus/Pluto conjunction of the 1960’s,

whose influence produced social revolution and political change reminiscent of the Romantic era. Even

when the influences of Uranus seem more sublimated than they did in the 1960’s, the planetary

dynamics remain at work, weaving the intricate tapestry of human evolution. It is impossible to divine

the fate of the human race, but archetypally speaking, Uranus is a force that inspires society to deny

dogmatic oppression and find the freedom of the human spirit within innovation. As technology

progresses, we are evolving to exist in a world entirely constructed by human language. This linguistic

construction often manifests as the Ideology of the State, but it can also develop through one’s own

subjective creativity. The Information Age, after all, is defined by constant engagement with symbolic

interpretation, hence pictographic web­pages, digital currency, and cartoon simulations of emotion. If

the spirit of innovation and creativity is cultivated rather than condemned, this may be a time that

humans will evolve our language in order to break out of the Iron Age of suffering, transforming our

species into a harmonious collective. There have been visions of human freedom in the minds of poets

since time and memorium, meaning that it is possible. In the last lines of Prometheus Unbound, Percy

Shelley writes of the liberation of the human spirit from hatred and oppression:

“To defy Power, which seems omnipotent; To love, and bear; to hope till Hope

creates; From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent; This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free; This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and

Victory.”

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Prometheus Unbound inspires the modern subject to believe that no matter how many repressive

ideologies bind, it is still possible to break free. The cathartic power lies in transforming the belief in

fate to a belief in dynamic motion. It lies in recognizing the potential to use the power of language and

emotion to reinforce the potential for boundless transformation! In this paper, I have associated that

force of change with the planet Uranus, and all that it symbolizes. Back in the summer of 1968, when

Uranus and Pluto were conjunct in the sign of Virgo, (astro.com) the hit single by a band called The

Rascals made a resounding declaration to the world, singing: “All the world over so easy to see! People

everywhere just got to be Free! Listen, please listen! that's the way it should be! Peace in the valley,

people got to be Free!” (People Got to Be Free ­ 1968) Another Uranian message for the ages.

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Works Cited

Althusser, Louis. "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses by Louis Althusser ..." Web. 30 Apr. 2015. In this highly influential essay, Althusser identified the 'Ideological State Apparatus' as the method by which organizations propagate ideology. This is in contrast to the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA), by which compliance can be forced and includes the army, police. In an essay about liberation from old ideologies, I thought it necessary to provide some theoretical references to scholarship on the mechanisms of ideological control.

Blake, William. "Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion." (1804­c. 1820): Electronic Edition. 1804. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

I chose this poem to represent the buoyant spirit of William Blake, one of the originators of Romanticism. This particular poem beautifully illustrates the criticisms that the Romantics had in regards to science, as an institution and a dogma. He also fiercely proclaims the necessity of independent thought, lest one become caught up in dogma.

Byron, George Gordon. "Apostrophe To The Ocean Poem." Poemhunter.com. 1818. Web.

29 Apr. 2015.

I referenced this poem because it is one of the most lyrical passages that describes the mystery at the heart of all artistic inspiration. It also shows Byron at his finest in terms of his abundant love for life, of both Man and Nature. He stands poised on the shore of discovery, open to science, poetry, love or the formless abyss.

Cavaliere, Felix and Eddy Brigati. People Got to Be Free. The Rascals. The Rascals,

1968. Vinyl recording.

I chose this song as a reference to evoke the exuberance of the late sixties during the Uranus Pluto conjunction. It is a musically upbeat but impassioned plea for tolerance and freedom: It became a big hit in the turbulent summer of 1968, spending five weeks at the top of the charts. I think it embodies the Romantic Spirit and still inspires people today to feel the joy of envisioning harmony in the world.

Forrest, Steven. The Inner Sky: How to Make Wiser Choices for a More Fulfilling Life. San Diego, CA: ACS Publications, 1988. Print. This is a very accessible and informative astrological text for the 21st­century student, with or without prior knowledge of the subject. Stephen Forrest is a writer of evolutionary astrology, which seeks to remain dynamic as a living science of symbolic

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thought. His insights into the planetary archetypes are lucid, historically sound and relevant to the modern use of astrological reference.

Foucault, Michel. "Michel Foucault, "Right of Death and Power over Life"" 7 Aug.

2010. Web. 30 Apr. 2015. I sought to describe some of the major ideological shifts that occurred in the Romantic era, including those brought about by the discoveries and theories of science. Biopower is a theory that well describes the shift in power during this historical period and it ultimately is something Mary Shelley questioned in a prophetic way.

Frank, Priscilla. "Camille Paglia's 'Glittering Images': Controversial Writer Speaks On

Warhol, Arts Funding And Star Wars (INTERVIEW)." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Nov. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. Camille Paglia is a cultural critic that offers inspiring insight into the development of art and culture, particularly from the Romantic period on. This interview illustrates how the cultural elements associated with Romanticism are still being experimented with and integrated today. More importantly, she remarks on the hypocrisy of those who would want to be revolutionaries today, but still be socially accepted and supported.

Greene, Liz. Saturn: A New Look at an Old Devil. York Beach, ME.: Weiser, 1976. Print.

Liz Greene’s background in psychology and Jungian analysis made this an excellent choice for me to research the archetypal meaning of Saturn. I wanted to be able to understand what the character of the “edge of the known universe” was until Herschel’s discovery of Uranus in 1781. This reading allowed me to understand the significance of Uranus by contrast.

Holmes, Richard. The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science. New York: Pantheon, 2008. Print.

This is an excellent history of British science and Romantic era biographies. I chose this book because it opens with a chapter on William Herschel, the discoverer of Uranus. This book, which focuses upon the period between Captain Cook's first voyage in 1768 and Darwin's Beagle journey in 1831, takes the story of British science back a bit earlier, and explains some of the important precursor developments to the Victorian period. He also clearly defines the link between the British Romantics and scientific discovery.

John, Keats. "Ode on a Grecian Urn." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1819. Web.

29 Apr. 2015.

As I have used many great excerpts from the work of the Romantic poets to evoke the inspired wisdom of the time, I felt compelled to use the most famous quote from this piece to give show Keats’ simple, yet profound knowledge of life. The tragedy of Keats’

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life is not merely that he died so young. It is the tragedy shared by all poets no matter how long they live, which is that when they speak the truth in simple lyrical form, nobody remembers long enough to end ignorance once and for all.

Morton, Timothy. A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.

London: Routledge, 2002. Print.

This is a sourcebook that examines Mary Shelley's novel within its literary and cultural contexts, bringing together essays which explain the contexts from which Frankenstein emerged and provides some of the best recent criticism. I chose this for the introduction by Timothy Morton, who is a renowned Romantic literary scholar, capable of providing detailed research on the political climate of the era. It is he that informed me that many of the Romantics were verifiable enemies of the state, with numerous spies assigned to follow these men and women.

Morton, Timothy. Ecology without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2007. Print. As an insightful literary critic and ecological philosopher, Tim Morton is always worth reading when looking for fresh 21st Century insight. In trying to understand the Romantic era relationship with nature, so often written about, I read many sections from this book which elucidated the history of the human­nature­relationship. There is also a great deal of analysis of Frankenstein, as it applies to the film Bladerunner.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. "On Truth and Lie in an Extra­Moral Sense." Nachlass, 1873. Web. 30 Apr. 2015.

When writing an essay that accepts that genius exists amongst certain artists, philosophers and intellectuals at various times in history, one can not ignore Nietzsche. In this essay, he brilliantly sees outside of the cage of semantics to reveal the that there never has been and there never will be an objective truth. In many ways his argument reflects his indignance at the vanity and delusion that theorists are prone to and so his spirit of rebellion against these attitudes of expertise and championing ideas is one that gave me the inspiration to use astrology even though it is not currently a popular paradigm.

Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Susan J. Wolfson. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's

Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus. Second ed. Print. The Longman Cultural edition of Frankenstein is my preferred edition of the text. It contains the 1818 publication, as well as the 1831 introduction. The content is rich and through additional essays, it provides extra information about the historical and cultural

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climate of the Mary Shelley’s time. It also has excellent footnotes, which make this a very solid book to be part of foundational research.

Shelley, Percy. "A Defence of Poetry. Percy Bysshe Shelley. 1909­14. English Essays:

Sidney to Macaulay. The Harvard Classics." A Defence of Poetry. Web. 29 Apr. 2015. In this essay, Percy Shelley announces his belief in the power of poetry and its innate origins inside human beings. He attempts to prove that poets are philosophers and that if it were not for poets, scientists could not have developed either their theories or their inventions. It was my intention to provide evidence that science and poetry have similar aims, that being to push the boundaries and catalyze human evolution. I mean to support the idea that the evolution of language through poetry can be just as powerful as scientific experimentation.

Shelley, Percy. "Prometheus Unbound:." P. B. Shelley, Prometheus Unbound. Web. 29

Apr. 2015.

This is the pre­eminent literary work which describes the mythology of Prometheus in the Romantic Era, the symbol for the ideals of the age. Shelley claimed that he wanted to create a story where Prometheus does not reconcile with his oppressor, but instead breaks free, showing once and for all that giving the light of consciousness to humans was a worthy cause! I used this poem to compare and contrast to Frankenstein, while also using it to demonstrate the passionate zeitgeist of liberation.

Shelley, Percy. "Queen Mab." Queen Mab. 1813. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

This was Shelley’s foundational philosophical poem of revolution. In it, he defies God and embraces the knowledge that science will bring. It is a piece that I used to effect the passionate feelings of inspired revolutionary thought that Shelley embodied.

Sunstein, Emily W. Mary Shelley: Romance and Reality. Boston: Little, Brown, 1989.

Print.

This is a thorough biography on Mary Shelley. I needed a basic reference for the details of her young life. This book illustrates her as a profound intellectual who outlasted most of her peers. Mary Shelley's turbulent life is a fantastic narrative which I was able to use to interpret her natal chart with more understanding.

Tarnas, Richard. Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View. New York, N.Y.:

Viking, 2006. Print.

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Richard Tarnas is an idiosyncratic historian who uses Jungian analysis as well as astrology to examine the development of the Western self in the last 500 years. This is one of the texts that allowed me to develop my research around the planet Uranus. He includes a staggering amount of art and literary history to peruse, all the while connecting important events and publications with astrological events.

West, M. L. Theogony ; And, Works and Days. Oxford [Oxfordshire: Oxford UP, 1988.

Print. I included brief references to Hesiod in order to evoke archaic agrarian society, now a fading memory in the post­industrial world. I also wanted to relate the dissolution of astrology with the the dissolution of the agrarian lifestyle. Another key point I take from Hesiod is his outline of the Ages of Man, which finds modern people in the Iron Age of suffering and labor, most especially in the industrial era in which his wisdom of the the cosmos and its rhythms is completely lost.

Wordsworth, William. 1888. Complete Poetical Works." Wordsworth, William. 1888.

Complete Poetical Works. 1798. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.

I needed contrasting viewpoints on the Romantic poet’s relationship to Science and this was a very good critique of Science, versus Byron and Shelley’s more embracing attitude. William Wordsworth’s poem, The Tables Turned, contains a powerful excerpt that I had to include to clearly represent the poet’s attitude towards the brutality of scientific experimentation. In addition to his critique of science, he encourages the reader to explore and play outside of books.

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Annotated Bibliography

Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. London: Verso, 1990. Print.

The mystical experience can be found in the stories of the unhallowed inhabitants of skid row living beneath the menacing masonry of government buildings, so long as the paradox and raw emotion is confronted with real insight and courage. In just this way, City of Quartz is a liberating text! Any humanities student living in the Los Angeles area must read it in order to fully understand their time and place in history. Author Mike Davis is a truly gifted scholar and story­teller, whose insights and meticulous research are absolutely paradigm shifting. Davis excavates the history of Los Angeles, as a monument to the destruction of public space and the loss of the civilian spirit. This work offers so much poetic and philosophical insight into the cultural geography of Los Angeles, that it begins to inspire a new blossoming of the will to become psychologically and spiritually free. Like in the allegory of Plato’s cave, Davis offers the reader new consciousness of the ideological prison that we live in, manifesting in both abstract language and physical architecture. The story of how the postmodern city came to be is idiosyncratic and proves that the values of the city are quite vulnerable to change. This mutable nature of Los Angeles, with its swirling cultural conditions and economic systems, make it a perfect setting for the Information Age to find its cutting edge.

Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane; the Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1959. Print. Mircea Eliade is essential to any student of religion, as he posited a theory that humans are innately religious whether or not they identify with a secular lifestyle. He fully embraces the mystical experience as a natural and organic occurrence that he called, hierophany. He notes that "No modern man, however irreligious, is entirely insensible to the charms of nature. Cosmic symbolism adds a new value to an object or action without removing the inherent values. Religious man finds within himself the same sanctity which he finds in the cosmos. Openness to the world enables religious man to know himself in knowing the world­­and this knowledge is precious to him because it is religious, because it pertains to being."

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In his mind, whenever the sacred manifests itself through hierophany, a different order of reality imprints upon experience, thereby shifting consciousness into a new direction. Eliade contrasts concepts of sacred mythological time versus profane time, which is is linear. Sacred time returns to the origins of creation and ritual plays an important part of embodying and existing within this consciousness. Mythology is regenerated through rituals which draw from the power of the sacred origins of the cosmos.

Gloria, Anzaldua. "La Conciencia De La Mestiza /towards A New Consciousness: Uma

Conversação Inter­americana Com Gloria Anzaldúa."Revista Estudos Feministas. Print. It is my belief that the purpose of the mystical experience, no matter what form it may take, is to encourage human beings to embody new consciousness for the purpose of spurring evolution and development. New ideas, profound insights, and miraculous conversions are all effects associated with the mystical experience. In this amazing essay, Gloria Anzaldua describes the pain and struggle of living divided in ambiguity of identity. She writes that a mestiza must juggle in balance different cultures and be flexible to survive the different perspectives of a duality. She introduces what she calls the "mestiza consciousness", which is an end to the trap of strict dualistic thinking. It is a step towards embracing wholeness that dissolves the needs of the individual and is connected to a collective consciousness which could end violence and hierarchical perversions of power. She adds that through this consciousness, she is participating a new system of thought that acknowledges ecological interrelatedness of all things. This essay is the work of a highly awakened spirit, and is highly optimistic about the potential for humanity to unify in peace and in love. By embracing the paradox that her social and racial identity forced her to contend with, Anzaldua has found a oneness of self that transcends societal labels. She implores the reader to use this depth of self discovery and transcendence to find the will to shift the collective consciousness of humanity towards a more accepting and embracing way of life that will ultimately benefit everyone.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 1985. Print. William James wrote one of the first texts on the mystical experience from an objective scientific perspective and its influence is still profoundly felt in all religious study and

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psychological study of any of these themes. In the apex of the age of scientific rationalism, William James sought to use his educated mind to explore the relatively new field of psychology. He had some beautiful insights into human consciousness, including the “stream of consciousness” which was a metaphor that hypothesized that all humans are swimming in the same waters of knowing, but are having unique experiences of its waters. His most profound research interest in psychology was to explore the reasons why religion has such transforming power in people’s lives. He was particularly interested in the “conversion experience” where an alcoholic could be cured in one night or a cripple could suddenly walk. He offered the idea that religion does not have to be worship of a God. It can be simply the belief in an unseen order, to which our task was to 'harmoniously adjust ourselves'. He notes that, "Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life, so why not say that any total reaction upon life is a religion?" Under this appreciation, atheism could be a religion. The fervor with which some atheists attack Christianity, he noted, is religious in nature. People take on religion for personal reasons, James argues ­ it must serve them in some way. He quotes J H Leuba, an early psychologist of religion: "God is not known, he is not understood; he is used." James' conclusion was that a state of faith could transform a life utterly, even though what is believed strictly speaking may not exist. Religion can genuinely heal a person, integrating what before was fragmented. For the author, who fell in and out of depression and endured a sense of alienation for many of his years, this alone justified religious activity. While he admitted to being far from spiritually advanced himself, it was clear to him that belief in the Unseen had unleashed in many the great forces of individuality and purpose.

Jung, C. G., and Anthony Storr. The Essential Jung. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1983. Print. Any Westerner looking for modern language to describe the mystical experience must read Jung. He is responsible for reviving the mythological consciousness of primal myth in an unprecedented way and he is also the author of the theory of synchronicity, which is the observance of magical meaning that every human can attune their intelligent perception to at will. Carl Jung is one of the catalysts of the archaic revival which is the cultural movements that have embraced the primitive and the shamanic in order to reinterpret the present with more clarity and feeling. Jung points out that in the West there is no spiritual base, no mythology, the

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gods are dead. In the place of true religion, there are decaying hierarchies, aging cults that only serve the status quo. There is no inner power. His writings inspire self­knowledge and mythological consciousness. The hope for Jung lies in true religion. The freedom and autonomy of the individual depends on deep inner experience of a metaphysical nature. This is not "faith"; it is direct knowing. In Jung’s narrative, the shallow, rootless mass­man and his organizations will always lose eventually, in favor of those with deep religious connection to the Macrocosm. Jung the Gnostic; Jung the Dreamer; Jung the Alchemist; Jung the Magician saw this. The individuated man has the cosmic correspondence within himself.

Leary, Timothy. Info­psychology: A Manual on the Use of the Human Nervous System According to the Instructions of the Manufacturers and a Navigational Guide for Piloting the Evolution of the Human Individual. Los Angeles: Falcon, 1987. Print.

Directly following in the footsteps of William James and Carl Jung, Dr. Leary became a celebrated psychologist at Harvard and sought to find the best therapies to aid the sickness of mind that Western man suffered from. After much experimentation with drugs, esoteric philosophies from Tibet, and the whole century of psychological research that came before him, he wrote this book as a manual to help people consciously seek and traverse the mystical experience for the purpose of developing and growing. This book represents an amalgamation of psychology, chemistry, biology, and the burgeoning language of computer science (hence the circuits) hypothesizing that the the human being is an advanced bio­computational organism comprised of eight circuits of energetic consciousness. Leary’s detailed descriptions of these energetic circuits draw from Freud, Jung, Transactional Analysis, Darwinian evolution, Neurophysiology, psychopharmacology, and an entourage of Leary's personal research. Dr. Timothy Leary is one of the truly tragic martyr stories of the 20th century, because he was imprisoned for being on the wrong side of the law when his research with LSD was suddenly outlawed. Despite his suffering, he never rejected his belief that drugs could aid and abet radical consciousness change. His work is an essential masterpiece for understanding the purpose of the mystical experience, for acknowledging human consciousness as a tool that can be used rather than simply held, fumbled, or dropped. Dr. Leary is the man you want to read if you are interested in breaking bad habits, expanding intelligence, or embracing the ecstatic experience in one’s life.

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McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Print. In order to understand the patterns of your own thoughts, one must understand mass media. In order to understand how one’s subconscious has been hijacked by other people’s agendas, one must understand media. In order to be somewhat safe on the internet today, one must understand media. That is why this is one of the greatest books ever written, and not because it analyzes the psychology of advertisements or the content of Hollywood movies. No! In this brilliant book, Marshall McLuhan explains that media is the extension of man, one of his tools that is a part of his language. He points out that all things created by man have come from man's own experience. Human inventions are what McLuhan calls extensions, as they extend our human capacity for that movement or experience. The foot can travel so fast, while the tire is the extension of the foot, and therefore can move at a much higher rate of speed than the foot. He says, "My own way of approaching the media is perceptual not conceptual." What he is saying is that he uses his senses to gain understanding of the media, not theoretical concepts. In other words, we become the media that we have been shaped by in our culture and time. The spoken word, the written word and the telegraph, McLuhan noted, has had the largest impact on our society. Not because of their usefulness, or whether they work or not, but because society has patterned themselves after the respective media. Understanding McLuhan's approach is about upsetting the whole sensory environment. The appeal McLuhan has had on the ages from 1964, when the book was published, is in his aphorism, "Media is the message." Most of McLuhan's writings are like this. It is not about explaining it, but involving the reader to think for himself; to evoke real criticism.

Metzner, Ralph. Sacred Vine of Spirits: Ayahuasca. Rochester, Vt.: Park Street, 2006. Print.

Ralph Metzner's work on Ayahuasca is an excellent overview of modern conceptions of Ayahuasca and where and how they originated. The book starts off with a brief history of the available data on this most powerful of entheogens. Next Metzner delves into modern trip reports of the experience by mostly well­to­do professionals, doctors, psychiatrists, etc. He uses stories that illuminate the universal archetypal imagery found within the typical ayahuasca experiences, as well as using them to show the overall personal benefits and healings gained by each individual's direct experiences with the sacred brew. He makes especially clear the

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importance of "la purga" or the purge, which are the effects of Ayahuasca to cause vomiting to cleanse the body and soul. This is an important work that details the cultural convergence of Western science and Shamanic medicine, which began in the 20th century and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.

Morton, Timothy. The Ecological Thought. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP, 2010. Print.

For anyone concerned about the human­nature­relationship, and why it is going so terribly

wrong, or for those emerging into a more ecological perspective on life ­­ this is a tremendous

book. Morton's book articulates the concept of "ecology" to encompass the interactivity of

"mental processes" and one's environment. The view that "nature" is "over there" (apart from us)

somewhere is dropped, and the exploration of the human­nature­relationship begins with the

assumption of an already existing interactivity ­­ which, of course, when one "thinks about it" ­­

is obviously accurate. It presents a perspective that to the attentive reader can reveal just how

deeply embedded the Romantic and/or Cartesian and/or materialistic­reductive viewpoint is

permeating our culture and thus our thinking. Morton's book is a deeply philosophical text in an

area of thought that is actually meaningful and relevant to our times. He represents the spirit of

mysticism reborn into the academy with great power.

Thurman, Robert. The Tibetan Book of the Dead Or, The After­death Experiences on the Bardo Plane, According to Lāma Kazi Dawa­Samdup's English Rendering . New York: Oxford UP, 2000. Print. Dr. Thurman’s translation is highly regarded as the best Western introduction to these sacred teachings. Some of the most esoteric and mystical insights on the planet come from the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. The Tibetan Book of the Dead was some of the main source material from which Dr. Timothy Leary was able to contextualize the psychedelic experience. The Tibetans have developed such deep meditation practices that they cultivated expansive macrocosmic conceptions of the universe and its interrelatedness, which the West is only now attempting to catch up to. Some of these teachings include: methods for investigating and cultivating our experience of the ultimate nature of mind in our daily practice, guidance on the recognition of the science of impending death and a detailed description of the mental and physical processes of dying, rituals for the avoidance of premature death, the now famous great liberation by hearing that is read to the dying and the dead, special prayers are read at the time of death, and allegorical masque play that lightheartedly dramatizes the journey

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through the intermediate state, and a translation of the sacred mantras that are attached to the body after death and are said to bring liberation by wearing.

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